See the round-up below for details, but in five minor-league games tonight, Sox farmhand starters put up the following combined line:
31 IP, 15 H, 3 R, 13 BB, 34 K, 0 HR, 0.87 ERA
Now back to your regularly scheduled bitching.
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Donny Lucy joined the big-league club today, and he looks like he'll be
the only new position player added to the expanded roster -- although Alex Cintron is back from the restricted list, and Luis Terrero back from the disabled list.
The Sox currently have 39 players on the 40-man roster, but
if Pablo Ozuna is cleared to play before the year is over, he'll round it out by coming off the 60-day disabled list. So much for Jason Bourgeois.
Some additional call-up thoughts:
No. 1: The Tribune story linked above names a couple of "logical" promotions -- David Aardsma and Dewon Day.
As mentioned yesterday, I would endorse Aardsma. Day on the other hand...
If you haven't been following him since his return to Charlotte, he's walked 15 batters over his last 9 2/3 innings. He only walked nine over 12 innings with the big-league club, so imagine his control being twice as bad. Let's just hope we'll only have to imagine it in September, because Sox fans have been tortured enough this year.
No. 2: I was trying to think of the last time a rookie made his big-league debut for the Sox during the season and started his career spanking the ball, and the most recent one I came up with was
Aaron Rowand in 2001.
Since then, it seems that every somewhat-touted position prospect bites it hard when making the leap. Danny Richar and Andy Gonzalez have fallen prey to it this year; Brian Anderson, Josh Fields, Ryan Sweeney, Chris Stewart, Miguel Olivo, Joe Borchard were all varying degrees of awful during their initial big-league stint. It's a little sad when Jerry Owens beats them all, and he only went 3-for-9 last September. Basically, we can expect rookies to be completely overwhelmed, leaving us to hope that they'll eventually figure stuff out.
Once, just once, it would be nice to see one touted position player come out smoking,
a la Jeff Francouer in 2005, even if he crashes down to Earth after a month or so, and never comes close to matching that production. It'd take a miracle for Lucy to resemble anything remotely major-league caliber, so the least he can do is go 6-for-10 before fading into obscurity with Raul Casanova and the gang.
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Minor league round-up:- Charlotte 3, Durham 0
- Andy Sisco pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing only one hit and striking out eight. He was on the inefficient side, walking four and throwing 99 pitches. He also struck out once, as Charlotte lost their DH when Casey Rogowski left the game early.
- Jason Bourgeois went 2-for-4 with a double and his 23rd steal of the year.
- Thomas Collaro hit a solo homer, his fourth with Charlotte.
- David Aardsma pitched a perfect ninth for the save, striking out once.
- Huntsville 4, Birmingham 0
- Ryan Wing pitched 7 2/3 terrific innings. He held Huntsville to one hit and zero runs while striking out six.
- Too bad Adam Russell came in and crapped the bed. He had retired two batters in the ninth, but with a runner on third, he walked two batters, hit one to drive in the go-ahead run, and walked another to make it a 2-0 game.
- Sean Smith had three of the Barons' five hits.
- Frederick 4, Winston-Salem 1 (Game 1, 7 innings)
- Fautino De Los Santos struck out 10 over six innings of work, only allowing a run on two hits and a walk.
- Ryan Rodriguez gave up a three-run homer with no outs in the seventh to end the game.
- Micah Schnurstein and Maurice Gartrell had two hits apiece.
- Winston-Salem 7, Frederick 1 (Game 2, 7 innings)
- Derek Rodriguez allowed one run on five hits over six innings. He walked five and struck out eight.
- Gartrell, Robert Valido and Matt Sharp each had two hits; Valido and Paulo Orlando each went deep.
- Kannapolis 7, Augusta 1
- Jason Rice capped off the day of excellent starting pitching with six innings of one-run ball. He allowed five hits and a walk, while striking out two.
- Billy Killian went 3-for-4 with two doubles, two runs and an RBI.
- Mike Grace and Reymundo Tavares drove in two runs each.