6/28 ML Gameday Thead: McGrath and 6 righties

Jordon Austin gets in the hit column! And two scoreless innings for Williams Jerez.

Dawgs at it again. Another bomb by Coyle. Earlier missed a HR on a disputed call too. HR's by Gibson and Chester. Swihart has flown out to the wall 2x. Once to cf and one down lf line.

Reading tied it at 3. But, Marrero hit a go-ahead run in Top 9th to put Portland up 4-3. 2-4 on the night.

I'd like to see Kurcz moved up to Pawtucket. He's had the time at AA with nothing left to prove there.

TJ stretch out year, I'd rather see Celestino, Scott, Olmsted or Ramirez. Right now Kurcz is throwing 93-94. 1st game back 97-98, I'm guessing he is throttled down. He just needs to build back the arm strength this year. Portland's bullpen is to bullpens what Pawtucket's rotation is to rotations.

On the other hand, Boston next year would be nice.

How about Theo Kurcz ? Captain Kurcz would also work.
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Portland's top 4 at it again:

Gibson 1/3 HR(1), BB
Marrero 2/4 HR(5)
Swihart 1/4 2B
Coyle 1/4 HR(9)

It shouldn't go unnoticed that these are the middle of the diamond position players, no corners and all solid or higher defenders.

I'm guessing baseballs but I might be wrong.
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Greenville lost 5-4. all 5 unearned off 2 errors and a walk-off passed ball. They've figured out how to stop Margot, he got the night off. Asuaje 3/5 with a 2B and Perkins 2/4 with a HR(6). Kendrick also had a SB and a CS but the CS was third base and he broke the Cardinal (General Manager ?) sin of being the third out. Tsk,tsk,tsk. Hopefully a learning experience, never make the 1st or 3rd out running at 3B.

I see Ramirez as an excellent middle relief prospect, love his change up (and make-up). Britton at Pawtucket has me concerned, this year he has a velocity drop from last but nobody has ever explained it and he's gone from being a good reliever to being marginal, always on the ropes. Scott is a lefty and those always have life. Olmsted could be middle relief candidates but is older, similar to Wilkerson & Gibson, all three on the prospect/org guy cusp. Celestino has a dominating look to him and the batter/pitcher confrontations.

ADD:

On Kurcz, the reason I think it's intentionally throttled down is that first outing, no fastballs less than 97, second outing and thereafter, no pitches that I've seen above 94. If you look at his SP profile, it's pretty much spot on to how he's throwing now. His first game though, he dominated and was definitely fast enough to work in the upper half. He struck out the side and I think the single he gave up was a broken bat single. He was more dominant in the first game than Celestino when he's dominant.

You might be right but I always thought all runs after the third out were unearned, even if they reached after.

Ah, OK, misinterpreted. I agree, even more insane would be if there was a pitching change after your error.
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Another thought, can we have a more obvious case of the Red Sox promoting on scouting and development as opposed to cyberstuff than Jordan Weems being promoted before Romanski in spite of a .166/.283/.215/.497 line at the time? Romanski to the all-star game, Weems to Salem (where's he's the feature catcher now) is pretty stark.

Witte with his first Salem HR.

Just found some info in a Speier article (go figure).

Jerez was up to 92 in EXST. Started incorporating secondary stuff and he works pretty hard at it apparently.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Cool deal. I'd like to see some scouting on Oscar Perez who made the same transition last year and is now pitching in Lowell. Hopefully one of the scout types will get out to see him. I'm really not expecting to get much out of Jerez' first year scouting anyways, way too early to tell if that might work. He obviously has the arm strength or the Sox wouldn't even have considered it.
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Ranking discussions belong in the meta forum but this week's rankings changes shouldn't go unnoticed. Swihart, Johnson, Marrero, Margot and Diaz all moving up.