Category Archives: Uncategorized

Pigs lost. Not much to say tonight.

Will write more tomorrow and in the coming days.

Below are the contenders. Voting will continue until 12:00 noon EDST on Wednesday September 21st. You may vote as often as you’d like, but I believe WordPress cuts you off at a certain point.

Vote for the funniest caption!

1. Teaching Di Pro how to start a fire….in the woods of RHODE ISLAND!!!

2. I wanna see someone steal home now

3. Crud! Spontaneous combustion. We go through shortstops like Spinal Tap goes through drummers.

4. Moss…. Initiating new members into the ground hog club.

5. Alright, start sending the smoke signals…”HELP US WE’RE STUCK IN THE WOODS IN THE MIDDLE OF RHODE ISLAND!!!!”

6. Either you’re in or you’re out, Mazone. Don’t make us do to you what we did to Tracy!

7. “Sandberg said we had to light a fire under our asses if we want to win the Governor’s Cup. Who wants to go first?”

8. That’s how to set the bats on fire. Next……

9. When playing rock, paper, scissors, I’m pretty sure fire trumps all the rest.

10. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean hot corner in the literal sense.”

11. After other teams were caught stealing the Iron Pigs signs, the team decided to try smoke signals instead.

This will be a rare post for me. I’m angry. Yes, I probably should be waiting until the morning to write this and will try to keep it as non-judgemental as I can but the Pigs were, well, they were hosed.

The Columbus Clippers, led by the efforts of home plate umpire FRAN BURKE, defeated the IronPigs by a final score of 6-2 tonight.

It was cool tonight. Temps in the low 50’s but fans were a lot hotter than that after viewing officiating that rivaled Andy Vincent of a few years back. Before I get into it, let’s look at some game facts.

IronPig Pitchers:

Bush – 94 pitches 54 for strikes
Feierabend – 47 pitches for 32 strikes
Perez – 25 pitches for 10 strikes
Zagurski – 5 pitches for 3 strikes

Add those up and you get 171 pitches for 99 strikes. Keeping in mind balls swung at are considered strikes thrown. That means the IronPigs tossed 72 pitches that were called balls. 42% of the pitches thrown were called balls.

Clipper Pitching:
Martinez – 98 pitches for 65 strikes
Lee – 31 pitches for 16 strikes
Burns – 11 pitches for 7 strikes

140 pitches total for 88 strikes. That works out to 37% of pitches called balls.

Now this may seem insignificant but to those who viewed this game can tell you. The Clippers were getting the close strikes, the Pigs were not.

This type of “bias” causes things to happen.

When close pitches are called balls, batters become more selective. They choose their pitches to hit and swing less. The pitcher then needs to groove pitches in the middle of the strike zone and are more easily hit.

When close pitches are called strikes, batters are forced to hit defensively swinging at anything near the plate. Pitchers become aware of this early and throw more borderline pitches resulting in more poorly hit balls and outs.

15 IronPig batters went down on strikes tonight, and 4 walked.

10 Clippers struck out, 10 walked. (5 in the 9th inning)

Now you can call me a sore loser, you can call me someone second guessing an umpire. If you were at the game tonight you would understand.

Home plate umpire FRAN BURKE was awful tonight. I can accept bad umpiring. If someone can’t perform or has a bad day.. it happens. What I don’t like is when that poor umpiring is leaning heavily towards one team. Longtime IronPig fans can remember the days when former umpire Andy Vincent seemed to make every call against the umpire. The days when even the other team shook their heads in amazement at the poor calls. Tonight reminded me A LOT of those days. Someone commented near me that if they were Ryne Sandberg they would have been ejected by then.

So who is FRAN BURKE?

From the IL Website:

FRAN BURKE..Age 31, 5’9″, 175 lbs., resides Ridgewood, NJ. 2000-01, Gulf Coast Lg.; 2001, Appalachian Lg.; 2002, S. Atlantic Lg.; 2003-05, Carolina Lg.; 2005-07, Eastern Lg.; 2006, Arizona Instruc. Lg.; 2007, Southern Lg. & Venezuelan Lg.; 2008-10, International Lg.; 2010, Arizona Fall Lg. -4th yr. in Triple-A-

Earlier this season we had the infamous “Pull the Tarp” game in Buffalo. In response to my email, IL President Randy Mobley reminded us that AAA umpires are being evaluated just as the players and their goal was to make the big leagues. I’m sure Mr. Burke has a family and friends who love him and care about him and I don’t doubt he is likely a good person, but tonight he was an awful umpire. Be firm but be fair. Tonight’s calls were by far not fair. I hope those who evaluate AAA umpires take notice to this game.

I’m usually not a fan of booing anyone.. folks are out there doing their best… tomorrow umpire FRAN BURKE has earned the booing I’m sure will result.

Add your comments and feelings below..

***

On other notes, why is Domonic Brown still in the lineup? Regular season… sure, let him play out and work on his swing. In what is essentially the World Series for AAA… play the lineup that can win.

On that same note, why.. Why.. WHY did we go with Perez and Chapman in the 9th inning tonight? Is it strategy to accept the loss going into the 9th inning with only a 1 run deficit? Let the strength of the bullpen rest for the long haul of what we hope will now go 5 games?

So many questions. Again, I believe I made my feelings on tonight’s game clear. What are yours?

The rain will most likely pass for tonight’s Game 3 of the IL Championship Series but it’s going to be a cool night reaching as low as 50 degrees.

50 degrees isn’t too bad but keeping in mind we’ve been 70 or above since May it will feel significantly cooler and if there is any wind expect tonight to feel cold.

So bring your coats, maybe a warm hat and if you’re sitting on the lawn I might suggest some waterproof material as the ground has absorbed a lot of rain lately.

Otherwise, cheer on the Pigs to victory!!!

OinK!

I found a voicemail on my phone this afternoon telling me that Pig Fest had been cancelled.

😦

Billed as a Bean Bag Toss tournament and Cow flop contest, cash prizes were to be awarded to winners and proceeds to charity.

I was really, really, really looking forward to this and it’s a shame. My only guess would be lack of participation. Suppose groundskeeper Bill may have objected to the cow flop contest too. Perhaps they heard of Team Dan & Jimmy T in the bean bag tournament and got scared.. The biggest loss is that this was for IronPigs Charities.

As I learned this past year, charity projects are a lot of hard work and truly depend on the generosity of others. Not an easy task by any means. Great idea and wish the Lehigh Valley had embraced it.

For those who did sign up, the voicemail went on to say refunds would be issued.

Nate Bump had a great performance and Tagg Bozied was responsible for the only Ironpig run (a solo HR in the 5th inning) but it wasn’t enough as the Clippers exploded in the 8th inning for 4 runs and a win in game 2 of the IL Championship series.

Bump came on in the 8th and allowed runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out before being pulled for Zagurski. An intentional walk and a sac fly tied the game. A wild pitch put the Clippers up and a 2 run single put the game out of reach.

I don’t have much else to say.. we get more baseball here in the Lehigh Valley and I will miss my Friday night bowling league for a 2nd week in a row.

OinK!

Just fitting these in here:

The IronPigs are hosting a viewing party of tonight’s game at the Copperhead Grille on Airport Road. Game time 7:05pm.

If you aren’t able to get there, you can always listen to Matt Provence and Mike Ventola on the 1320 or 1230 AM.

Another option is the MiLB TV online feed.

I prefer to watch the MilB feed on mute and listen to the radio broadcast.

***

There will be a Phillies viewing party on Sept. 22 at Coca Cola Park for Season Ticket holders. If you are a season ticket holder you should have received an invite with all the details.

***

I’ve heard many grumblings lately about the Fan Appreciation night last week. I noticed there was a discount on soda.

Help me out here, I didn’t take a walk around the park that night, were there other “thank you’s” to the fans that I missed?

I didn’t take notice, more concerned with the game, but I have been a magnet for people complaining about what they saw as a lack of Fan Appreciation.

I remember in 2008 there was a big “THANK YOU FANS” painted on the field. I guess we deserved it with the season’s results that year.

I’d rather say “THANK YOU to each and every IronPig Player, Sal Rende, Rod Nichols and Ryne Sandberg!”

Comment section is below, feel free..

OinK!

The Pigs won a team record 8th game in a row tonight by defeating the Columbus Clippers by a score of 5-2.

The Pigs got on the board early on base hits by Podsednik and Frandsen topped off with red hot Brandon Moss Hogg’s 3 run HR in the first inning!

Our beloved swine added another run in the 2nd and the final score on Overbeck’s solo HR in the 9th.

Scott Mathieson pitched well for 6 innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks. He struck out 2.

Savery (2 innings), Aumont (1) and DeFratus closed out the game. DeFratus helped make it exciting allowing the bases to load before striking out the last batter of the game.

Columbus’ starter McAllister nearly pitched a complete game loss, but was pulled in the 9th before recording an out.

The Pigs now lead the best of 5 series 1-0 and look to take game 2 tomorrow in Columbus before returning to the Lehigh Valley on Thursday for Game 3 and potential Games 4 & 5.

GO PIGS!!!!!

OinK!

Leave your funny caption suggestion in the comments of this post. Next week I will post a voting poll and the best will win a “Mystery Prize”

I forget where I got this photo, feel free to add credit if you know the photographer.

*This contest is for fun. I reserve the right to all decision making, rules, etc.

From the IronPig’s Media Dept.

Photo from @lindseyknupp on Twitter

IronPigs Day Proclamation
September 12, 2011
Coca-Cola Park

Lehigh County Executive Donald T. Cunningham, Jr., will deliver a proclamation to IronPigs officials today at 4 p.m. at Coca-Cola Park to encourage public support as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs open up the Best-of-Five Governors’ Cup Finals this week. The public will be encouraged to wear red, display IronPigs signs and support the team beginning on Thursday when the IronPigs host the Columbus Clippers in Game Three of the Governor’s Cup at Coca-Cola Park.