Mack Attack: August 3, 2008

By John Mackin Ade
Posted Sunday, August 3, 2008

Pennant: Phillies: 49 losses - Mets: 52 – Marlins: 52

Wild Card: Milw: 49 losses - St. Louis: 51 - Mets: 52 - Marlins: 52

2B Luis Castillo played in his first rehab game yesterday, going 0-for-2 with a walk as a DH in the Gulf Coast League. Castillo, who has been on the DL for a month with a strained left hip flexor, could return in a week.

After all of the swings and misses, the Mets' defense (fielding and pitching) is slightly worse than you would have expected it to be coming into the season. On the field, the Mets' gloves have been 11 plays above average, which is good but not great. Jose Reyes has been a surprising disappointment in the field, bobbling more balls than usual and posting the second-lowest Revised Zone Rating among NL shortstops. According to John Dewan's plus/minus system, he is 23rd among all major league shortstops in plus/minus plays. He was 5th and 7th in 2006 and 2007, respectively. And the combination of Damion Easley and Luis Castillo at second has made no one forget Frank White. However, Carlos Beltran is still a superb center fielder and Brian Schneider has been an upgrade behind the plate. The unfortunate injuries to Ryan Church and Moises Alou have resulted in more playing time for Endy Chavez, who has continued his outstanding play in the outfield (he's fourth in major league right field plus/minus plays). So, overall, the results have been mixed (let's not talk about Marlon Anderson in left field). - HardballTimes

Zephyrs:

Former Cubs/Giants infielder Ramon Martinez signed a minor-league deal and was assigned to New Orleans. Martinez, 35, was released by the Dodgers on July 24 after hitting .287 in 28games at Triple-A Las Vegas.

No Zephyr had ever hit three home runs at Zephyr Field, until Saturday night. Valentino Pascucci went deep three times, yet the New Orleans Zephyrs still needed to come from behind with two runs in the bottom of the 10th to beat the Tucson Sidewinders on Saturday, 8-7.
Pascucci homered off Tucson starter and former Tulane star Micah Owings in the third, a two-run shot, and in the sixth, a solo blast. With the Zephyrs trailing 6-3 in the eighth, Chris Aguila led off with a walk against reliever Reid Mahon, and Pascucci followed by belting a 3-2 pitch over the fence in left-center field to draw the Zephyrs within a run.

After Michel Abreu singled, Tucson turned to Dustin Glant, but Anderson Hernandez connected for a triple off the center field wall to plate Abreu and tie the score at 6-6.

With one out, the Zephyrs attempted a suicide squeeze, but Abraham Nunez missed the bunt and Hernandez was easily tagged out, ending the threat.

The game went into extra innings, where Tucson took the lead in the 10th on a Frank Curreri pinch-hit RBI single. But again the Zephyrs rallied, and again it was behind Aguila getting on base to lead off the inning.

Aguila doubled off Glant (2-3), and scored on a single by Michel Abreu to knot the game at 7-7. Pascucci walked and with two out, John Rodriguez came up as a pinch-hitter in his first game action since July 26, and laced a single into right-center to score Pascucci with the game-winner.

Pascucci finished 3-for-4 with four runs scored and five RBI, and became the first Zephyr to hit three home runs in a game at home, and the first overall since Lance Berkman at Las Vegas on April 15, 2000.

Ivan Maldonado (3-4) picked up the win, despite allowing the Sidewinders run in the top of the 10th. That was the only run the Zephyrs bullpen allowed in 5.2 innings on the night, and in 13.2 innings during the four-game series.

B-Mets:

The Binghamton Mets scored four runs with two outs in the ninth, but the New Britain Rock Cats held on for an 8-5 win at New Britain Stadium Saturday. The loss snaps Binghamton’s win streak at three games.

New Britain (45-67) scored four runs of their own off Jose Sanchez (10-6) with two outs in the first. David Winfree notched a run-scoring single before back-to-back doubles by Danny Valencia and Matt Moses drove in three more for a 4-0 advantage.

Mike Carp got one of the runs back for Binghamton (60-55) with a solo homer to right. But that would be all Jay Rainville (8-8) would allow over six innings of work.

The Rock Cats added to their lead in the bottom of the third, when Winfree reached on an error and scored on a subsequent error. Winfree’s groundout in the seventh scored another before Drew Butera’s sacrifice fly and Dustin Martin’s RBI single in the eighth put New Britain ahead 8-1.

Caleb Stewart drew a one-out walk off reliever Zach Ward in the ninth and moved to third on Shawn Bowman’s base hit. Salomon Manriquez followed with a single to right, bringing in Stewart, before Bowman scored on Josh Petersen’s double. Jonathan Malo added a single that scored Manriquez and Petersen, but that was as close as the B-Mets would get. Ward held on for his first save in three chances.

Gnats:

As minor league baseball players all around him quietly race against the clock to advance to higher levels, time is on Francisco Pena's side. The Savannah Sand Gnats starting catcher is only 18, and won't turn 19 until Oct. 12. He made his professional debut last year at 17 - when most players were still in high school - and played a full season here in the Class A South Atlantic League against much older competition. Most rookies start at lower levels. That's one reason why Pena has been considered one of the top-21 prospects in the New York Mets' farm system by Baseball America. More importantly, he is making progress. Manager Donovan Mitchell sees Pena's improvement defensively as well as in a more studied, patient approach at the plate, resulting in development as a gap hitter and huge gains offensively. "For a kid that young at this level in this league, to be able to do that is incredible," Mitchell said. "At the beginning of the year, he wasn't really throwing a lot of guys out. He was having some trouble with the runners. Lately, he's been shutting down running games. He's been doing an excellent job with his exchange and footwork and good throws to the bag. I've seen it from day one to now. He's made excellent progress." Pena is delighted and proud to be at this level, and was rewarded with a selection to the league's all-star game last month. Yet, he knows better than most how far he still has to go to live his dream of playing in the majors."When you're in the minors, you're just here to learn," Pena said. "It doesn't matter where you are, Double A, Triple A. You see some guys in big leagues learning something new. It's just a matter of time. I'm here. I'm still learning a lot. I'm hoping to go forward." He is hoping to someday join his father and older brother in the big leagues. His father, Tony Pena, was a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove catcher from 1980-97, and now coaches first base for the Mets' rival New York Yankees. Francisco's brother, Tony Pena Jr., 27, plays shortstop for the Kansas City Royals. - SavannahNow

The Augusta GreenJackets (26-15, 67-43) were just too much for the Sand Gnats Saturday night at Lake Olmstead Stadium, defeating
Savannah, 9-6. The Gnats overcame three different Augusta leads but ran out of gas late.

After the Gnats (20-20, 53-57) had tied the game for the second time in the top half of the seventh inning, reliever Stephen Puhl (0-1) walked the first two batters he faced in the bottom half of the inning. With Nick Noonan on second and Juan Ciriaco on first, Thomas Neal laid down a textbook sacrifice bunt to move the runners up 90 feet.

Donovan Mitchell then went to Jose Bierd to try and preserve the tie. TheGnats then elected to intentionally walk Angel Villalona to load the basesand set up a double play. It backfired as Garrett Baker laced a single into left field to score both Noonan and Ciriaco and give Augusta a lead they would not surrender.

Savannah had its opportunities to break the game open. In the seventh, the tying run had already scored and the Sand Gnats had the bases loaded with less than two outs. Ryan Paul then struck out Nick Giarraputo and Jefferies Tatford to end the threat.

Tatford went 1-for-4 and gave Savannah a brief lead with a three-run home run in the fourth inning. Greg Veloz, Casey Craig, Sean McCraw and Juan Lagares all had two hits apiece.

Paul (5-2) would pick up the win for Augusta while Trey Webb earned his first save.

Clones:

With highly-touted drafted picks Ike Davis, Reese Havens and Zach Lutz all on the shelf at various points in the season, the Brooklyn Cyclones have seemingly gotten offensive production from a different source every night. John Servidio, however, has been the most consistent of the ragtag bunch of Brooklyn players that have kept the team in playoff contention this season. However, in a move reminiscent of the 2006 Cyclones that some felt made more roster moves than their big league counterparts in order to win ballgames, the Barry University product was sent to Kingsport on July 11 in an effort to spark the offense that was collectively hitting just under .250. Scoring only eight runs in four games without their leading RBI man, Servidio was back in the Cyclones lineup on July 15, completing a wild four-day trip along the East Coast. 10-7 since Servidio rejoined the team, the coaching staff doesn’t see him going anywhere again this season. “He was our best player the first few games,” said Cyclones skipper Edgar Alfonzo. “We’re happy to have him back now too. He makes us better and does a lot of things for us.” - DemBrooklynBums

Minor League Bios:

Juan Lagares SS R R 6-1 175 3-17-89 Dominican Republic

Juan Mercado, the scout that found Jose Reyes, said in (2006) a Dominican newspaper that 16 year old SS Juan Lagares is better than Jose Reyes at the same age. Lagares was signed by the Mets in 2006 and assigned to the DSL team, where he played 57 games and hit .255/.339/.412. He was 3rd in the league in triples.

In March 2007, Lagares got his first taste of prospect-hype when this was written about him on the MiLB web site: “Remember the name Juan Lagares, a 17-year-old shortstop the Mets signed out of the Dominican Republic. It has yet to be determined where he will start the season, but he had a strong Instructional League in the fall and, according to Minaya, "does things ahead of what Jose Reyes was doing [at that age]." Lagares hit .255 in 57 Dominican Summer League games last year and collected eight triples and 12 stolen bases. "He's very talented," vice president of player development Tony Bernazard said. "He's going to be special."

Lagares got off to a rough start in 2007 for Savannah, especially defensively, and was optioned back to extended spring training in early May. He returned on 5/12/07 and immediately was slotted back in the starting lineup, but eventually wound up on the IR list through the end of the season (.210/.262/.317 in 281 at bats).

Legares was born in Constanza, Puerto Rico. In September 2007, Baseball America ranked Lagares as 16th in the SAL in ‘speed score’.

This Day in Mets History:

1997 - Coming off the Brewers' bench, Jeromy Burnitz ties an American League record homering in consecutive pinch-hit at-bats August 2-3.
2000 - Kevin Mitchell of the Sonoma County Crushers is expelled for the rest of the season from the independent Western Baseball League for punching the owner of an opposing team. The former National League MVP allegedly hit Solano Steelheads owner Bruce Portner, who had come on the field after a brawl had ended which was caused by a pitch thrown behind Mitchell.