Tonight’s game was pretty exciting in spite of the results.
Pawtucket jumped off to an early lead with 2 home runs in the 1st inning. In the 4th they jumped all over Ryan Feierabend for 7 more runs and scored a solo HR off of Mathieson in the 6th.
So far not much excitement for the Ironpigs. They were held hitless until the 5th inning when they broke the shutout by scoring two runs. The never say die effort added 3 more runs in the 6th and 2 in the 7th. Unfortunately that was all to be had and the Pigs lost by a final score of 8 to 11.
Tonight, however, was the closest we’ve come to 12 hits since Philly Pretzel’s announced they would make a donation to the Noise Nation’s cookbook fundraiser with a final tally of 12 Ironpig hits. Tonight they had 11.
On the scorecard, this looks like a loss but it was a great example of the difference between Huppert baseball compared with Sandberg baseball. We’ve seen blowouts like this before but the hustle and drive we’ve seen in the first few weeks of the season is nice to see.
For the Ironpigs, only one Pig (Belliard) did not have a hit tonight; Sullivan and Miller having 2 each.
The Pig Pen did its job effectively over 5.1 innings allowing only 3 hits and 1 run (solo HR) walking one and striking out 5.
***
Also of note, with Joe Blanton heading to the Disabled list.. Ironpig pitcher Vance Worley was called up to the big team as well as catcher Dane Sardinha who is said to be covering for Carlos Ruiz who injured his back yesterday.
And so it begins…
Worley is scheduled to start for the Phillies on Friday vs. the Mets in Philadelphia.
A note on Domonic Brown. He was 2-4 tonight with 2 home runs for Clearwater. We may see him around soon.
No word yet on who we will get to replace Sardinha & Worley. Possibly Tuffy Goeswisch or JC Ramirez.
We will see.
OinK!
noisenation.mlblogs.com 
Well this gives me more time to have Worley Bird 2.0 constructed. 🙂
I was hoping for Tuffy, but it’s Naughton, per Lore tweet. Actually, I’m just really happy to keep Kratz. Do they think Sardinha’s better defensively? They just know him better? I’m wondering how he got the call over Kratz.
As for the pitcher, some might depend on how Worley does, and how Oswalt’s family is doing. We might be short for a time. Or we might get a Reading starter (Ramirez? Hyatt?), or perhaps Naylor’s feeling better…
It seems, Chooch is not going on the DL, so they’re just adding Dane to back up Schneider as third catcher. It looks like they’re going to have to make a move to add Dane to the 40-man before they activate him, right? So, maybe somebody gets caught in waiver limbo for a while? Stay tuned.
It certainly should be noted that, in the end, the IronPigs made a respectable fight of it after giving up the early touchdown and field goal.
Pride matters, character counts…
Yup, and shame on me for leaving at 6-0. I have to adjust if I’m going to do my part to support the “new pigs.”
11 hits, i blame Belliard 0-5, come on!! Surprised to see Worley starting, Kendrick is going to snap! Phillies bats are terrible, but usually when a pitcher goes on the DL, they start to hit–i guarantee over the next 2 weeks the phils average 5 runs a game. I have decided to hold the pretzel eating contest when Big Joe Blanton rehabs at the Coke—he will put everyone to shame