Huh. He appears to be doing double duty... http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?player_id=545331#/career/R/pitching/2017/ALL
Aplin is supposed to have a pretty good glove in the OF, solid speed, and he can work a walk. Early results have been decent as pitcher. Do what you gotta do to get to the show. If any team is up for trying some weird s**t it's us.
I know we've been on opposite spectrums on him. I love walks and hitting the ball hard. He's a high risk, high reward guy due to the Ks. I know this will sound bad, but he reminds me of Singleton. Guys with high K rates are just not that easy to predict with publicly available stats.
Our AAA pitching is struggling. Alpen is brought in to pitch the 9th, when the game is lost to the Astros, so Alpen is only seeing extremely low leverage situations. It would not surprise me if most batters Alpen faces are more interested in hitting the showers than padding their stats.
Jorge Alcala's Carolina League debut: 6 IP, 3 H (solo HR allowed), ER, 3 BB, 6 K Spencer Johnson is currently 2-2 with a 3-run homer, his first with Buies Creek. The Astros lead Down East 5-1 in the 7th.
Rogelio Armenteros @ Frisco: 5 IP, BB, 5 K; He was perfect through 4.2 innings. Jon Singleton smacked a solo homer, his 8th of the season, for the only run of the game.
D.J. Fisher just hit his 10th home run of the season, a solo shot off former Astro Josh Zeid that extends Fresno's lead over Memphis to 7-2 in the 7th. He's the first player in the system to hit 10 homers this year.
Welcome to another installment of Obscure Astros Farmhands. Andrew Thome got the save in Corpus Christi's 2-1, 10-inning win over Frisco on Friday. The Astros signed Thome as an undrafted free agent out of the University of North Dakota in 2015. He is a product of a program that no longer exists... North Dakota cut baseball after the 2016 season. Since entering pro baseball, Thome has proven to be quite adept at getting groundball outs, posting a 2.42 groundout/airout ratio in 2015 and a 2.02 mark in 2016. That 2.02 figure also includes a 2.31 mark in Lancaster. In 2017, however, he's inducing groundballs at an astronomical rate. Of the 64 balls that opposing batters have put into play against him, 51 have been groundballs. That's good for a 79.7% groundball rate. Between Corpus and Buies Creek, Thome has a 4.22 GO/AO ratio. He's faced 87 batters, and 29 of them have grounded out. Three others have grounded into double plays. As an undrafted guy in AA, he's certainly outperformed expectations. Who knows, maybe there's a future for him as a middle reliever in Houston if he continues to get those groundballs.
Colin Moran starting to heat up. He's showing patience, contact, and power. BABIP is even a little low for him in AAA. Not sure it means anything to Astros, except that he may be moving to top of the line for IF injury replacement.
Kevin Comer had a perfect 1.2 innings in AAA. It looks like they're grooming him for a 2 inning bullpen type of role. Last night, he entered the game with a bases loaded 1 out situation and escaped with no damage allowed. He's got a 0.44 ERA in about 20 innings in AAA. His WHIP of 1.16 is quite good by PCL standards, and he's got a nice 24/6 K/BB ratio.
Jason Martin is currently 2-2 with an RBI for Buies Creek. He's come on strong since a modest start to the year. Kyle Tucker update: he has a bases-clearing double. Buies Creek leads Down East 6-1 heading into the 3rd inning.
Yoanys Quiala allowed a run on a solo homer, one other hit, walked 1, and struck out 2 in 5 innings for Buies Creek. The 2 strikeouts match a season-low, but he has a 39:6 K:BB ratio in 37 innings this season.
Framber Valdez tagged in to pitch the final 4 innings and allowed an RBI single (the only hit he allowed), walked 2, and struck out 6.
Ryan Hartman @ Kane County: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 BB, 7 K No score in suburban Chicago; Quad Cities was shut out in the first two games of the series.
