8/16 ML Gameday Thread: It's J Day on the mound

In the suspended game, the Red Sox coughed up a seven-run lead and lost 11-10.

Kevin Steen made his pro debut in game 2 (IP, 2/1 K/BB).

Margot with his first A+ hit.
<--- Singer is tweeting from the PawSox game.

A shame I can't see Margot periodically. Salem seems to do an overall poor marketing job compared to the other affiliates. Even Lowell a short season team has a lot more community visibility events and does far more to promote their team.

At least the third strikeout with runner getting to first in the last 3 games with Blair catching.

Margot 3R HR. Salem up 7-3 top of the 4th.

Couch with a videogame start. Tossing a 1 hitter thru 7, 2BB 7Ks. Portland only has 2 hits, of course KDLC & Almanzar.

Most team radio broadcasts are open mic between innings. When you listen to their games there's very little going on. Greenville is probably the best at that, and they're also in the middle of nowhere. When you listen to the Drive games there's always crowd interest things going on in the background. Jarinco is doing a great job promoting the club and the field bringing in events with local colleges.

I get tweets from all the affiliates, it's rare that you see events being promoted for Salem. Today they have a military appreciation day but that's the first one I've seen in a while. When they had the recent best mascot contest, Salem was noticeably AWOL.

Lepler is one of my favorite broadcasters but unfortunately ESPN has also spotted his talents and he's spending more and more time doing TV chick sports than Salem games. The fill ins are decent but they aren't Lepler.

Portland with a 10 inning 1-0 walkoff. Meneses with the RBI. KDLC 3/4 with a double.

Salem up 16-6 in the 6th. Margot, Witte and Escobar all 3/4. Witte and Margot also added a HR.

Drive down 9-1. Oscar Perez got tattooed.

Lowell down 2-1 6th.

GiclSox were swept. Lost the regular game 2-1.

Slugger should get a call up to the bigs, Wally can be DFAed.

Agreed which is why I initially comped to Greenville which isn't exactly in the middle of Red Sox Nation. Greenville also does an excellent job of turning minor league baseball into a family event.

None of this has anything to do with their primary responsibility which is player development and all of our affiliates seem to be aces in that arena.

ADD; All of the unis worn tonight at Portland will be auctioned off for charity.

Four random observations:

KDLC is up to .364 / .391 / .566 vs. RHP. Alas, he's had a whopping 38% of his PA vs. LHP and hit .203 / .229 / .228. He needs to hit against AAA RHP and high-A LHP next year ... if only.

Tzu-Wei Lin has hit .250 / .365 / .365 so far in August (62 PA, 10 BB, 9 SO), pretty much the best month of his career. 95% chance it's a SSS fluke rather than evidence of improvement, but we'll take 5% as being better than 0%. (He may have seen a lot of LHP, whom he's hit well all season.)

After 0/3 today, Rafael Devers is 2/19, BB, 5 SO, and his GCL line is down to .303 / .363 / .492.

Another strong outing for the mysterious Gerson Bautista, he of the $250K bonus, first DSL year missed with a suspension, underwhelming .134 K% and .088 BB%, and stupid .005 HRC and .197 BABIP.

Utility. They wouldn't be using him this way otherwise, most likely.