Well it hasn’t been pretty. In the past six games the Ironpigs have allowed their opponents to score in the first inning. Not only that, the bad guys have scored first in 12 of the 15 games this season. While being able to hover around .500, this certainly needs to change if we expect them to stay around .500.
Tonight seems to be another continuing trend as listening to the radio broadcast we heard that both teams were disagreeing with home plate umpire Gerard Ascani. Both Kevin Frandsen and Ryne Sandberg were ejected for arguing a call and several others were gathering a temper when not given time when asked for.
The Pigs went quickly into the hole in the bottom of the first allowing 2 runs with some scattered hits and a walk. They came back with one run in the 2nd but only scraped out one hit from the 3rd through the 7th. Going into the 8th Rich Thompson whacked a pinch hit double and scored on a throwing error allowing Barfield to get on base.
For the pitchers, starter Brian Bass lasted 4 innings tonight allowing 7 hits and 3 runs. The biggest line number for him is the 5 walks. 52 of his 87 pitches were strikes but the walks allowed him to burn out sooner rather than later and to the bullpen went Ryne Sandberg. In came Brian Gordon fresh off of the disabled list, followed by Mathieson and Stutes.
It did no good though, the Pigs fell 2 to 4 to the Bison. They fall below .500 again and are looking for the bats to come alive. Perhaps tomorrow…
Another note of the recent absence of catcher Erik Kratz, revealed by @Pigsradio on Twitter, that he had a toenail issue and a return will be soon. Sounds a lot like an injured Valendia… an Actual injured Valendia.
OinK!
noisenation.mlblogs.com 
Tough game to watch on Milb.com. I really don’t come away with much, except that Sardinha is really, really, really bad offensively. I’m not sure what’s keeping Gosewisch at AA. He’s played there for over 2 years now. While not great, he’s an upgrade from Sardinha.
Part of the issue is the lack of catching depth in the organization. Outside of Valle, they don’t have a bunch of legitimate good catchers in the org. They probably want someone strong at AA to take care of the staff, and are less concerned about the AAAA pitchers at LHV.
I imagine the thing keeping Sardinha around is that he did a servicable job in Philadelphia last year when Chooch and Schneider were injured. I certainly wouldn’t be confident sending him there now. I’m not sure he’s any great shakes as a defensive catcher either. Kratz is dinged up, so that’s part of it as well.
I absolutely agree with you about Gosewisch. Should Kratz need a week or two on the Velandia list, I’ll take him over Suomi (who’s now in Clearwater, I believe) any day. I’m not sure Reading has that many more ML pitching prospects than we do, if you want to count the ‘pen.
Reading: Aumont, Ramirez, Hyatt, Zeid, DeFratus
LV: Worley, Schwimer, Stutes, Zagurski (up), Naylor (dl)
ehh, maybe. The Reading guys are younger, I guess, and can benefit from the better catcher. You’re probably right, the more veteran pitchers don’t need the catcher help as much.
Naughton’s on the 40-man, so they must like him at least a little. But you’re correct about Valle. Hopefully he’ll move right along with the good young pitchers in Clearwater.
Did anybody see the exchange that got Sandberg bounced? He’s been known to do a little performance art just to get his boys fired up and show ’em he’s got their back. (There’s an absolutely hilarious YouTube video of him getting ejected by systematically provoking the umpire with one cliche after another; watching it, you get the feeling that it’s totally premeditated.) Just wondered whether tonight was a bonafide conflict or a strategic ejection to get the team’s attention.
I didn’t see it. From what I can piece together from limited media reports, Frandsen hit a little dribbler and to exception to the tag out. He was immediately tossed. Sandberg came out to argue the tossing and got tossed himself. Both were quick triggers, I understand.
Frandsen kind of elbowed the pitcher as he was being tagged out. To me, it wasn’t a dirty play, just a hard nose baseball play, but the umps and the pitcher didn’t see it that way. If it was warmer outside, I think it would have resulted in a bench clearing event, except everyone seemed content to be in the dugout on that miserable night in Buffalo.
OUR BOYS NEED HELP–SO HERE WE GO——–LET’S CALL IT THE PHILLY PRETZEL DOZEN—————EVERYTIME THE PIGS GET 12 HITS OR MORE—-PHILLY PRETZEL WILL DONATE $12 TO THE ROLLER GIRLS AND $12 TO DAN FOR THE BRAIN TUMOR FUND——LET’S SEE SOME OF THE OTHER BUSINESSES ON TIS PAGE MATCH IT, SO GETTING A DOZEN HITS WILL PAY BIG CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I GUESS WE SHOULD SAY AT HOME GAME ONLY
I love it! Thanks Bert! Let’s get those hits!!!!