PCL Best And Worst Performances Of The week
By Scott Andes
The PCL is heating up just as the weather is this summer. The date today is June 10. And on this day let’s take a look around the PCL at the top and worst performers from the last week.
Ian Stewart had a career day on Saturday with a three homer game-Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports
June 3- June 9 2013
Aces were high last night in the heat of the Reno Desert. Zeke Spruill of the last place Reno Aces pitched a gem last night against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox at Reno. Spruill, a right hander who has struggled since his recent promotion from double –AA Mobile to AAA Reno, pitched a complete game seven hit shutout in a 4-0 Reno win over Colorado Springs. Spruill made 123 pitches, and was very effective despite only whiffing two batters. Spruill only walked one, and made the Express kill worms all night long with 14 ground ball outs. Spruill picked up his well deserved second win of the season.
Chris Owings, who is enjoying a fine season collected three hits, and delivered a solo home run. All four runs were scored from the long ball for Reno. There was a two-run shot from second baseman Tyler Kuhn, and another blast from Matt Davidson.
On the other side, Colorado Springs starter Drew Carpenter allowed 13 hits through six frames, but was able to pitch out of a lot of jams by only allowing two earned runs. Colorado Spring’s vaunted lineup took an ohfer against Spruill. Charlie Blackmon, Josh Rutledge, and Ryan Wheeler went a combined 0 for 11 against Spruill in the loss.
Carlos Torres pitched a gem of his own for the Las Vegas 51’s over the Tacoma Rainiers in a 7-1 win. Torres won his sixth game of the season to improve to 6-3. His complete game two-hit win over Tacoma lowered his ERA to 3.89. The former major leaguer is trying to work his way back to the big leagues, and performances like this can make a good case. Torres only allowed one run on two hits, while walking two and whiffing four. Torres made 101 pitches with 66 of them being for strikes. Torres improves his strike out per nine rate to 8.4 in 2013. Las Vegas used a well balanced attack, going 4 for 16 with runners in scoring position. Brandon Hicks had the big blow with a grand slam home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Wilmer Flores collected three hits of his own in the win.
Tacoma struggled and was unable to get anything going off of Torres. Lucas Luetge allowed a grand slam, three hits and two walks in his lone inning of relief.
The New Orleans Zephyrs edged out the Albuquerque isotopes by a score of 3-2 at New Orleans on Saturday night.
The Tope’s bullpen would get a worst performance of the week grade by serving up the eventual game winning run in the bottom of the eighth to break a 2-2 tie. The Topes has a 1-0 lead until the sixth inning, when Bryan Petersen slammed a two-run home run for New Orleans to put them ahead 2-1. The Topes would tie it up in the seventh, when Brian Barden doubled, and eventually scored on a Justin Sellers sacrifice fly. However in the eighth inning, New Orleans would re-take the lead for good. There was a Jordan Brown walk, and a Jake Smolinski RBI double, and a fielding error from Tony Gwynn Jr. allowed the winning run to score. The New Orleans bullpen finished it the rest of the way. Chris Hatcher whiffed Gwynn and Sellers to end the game, pick up his 19 save, and secure the win for New Orleans.
Last Thursday was a good old fashioned slugfest in a game between the Fresno Grizzlies, and the Salt Lake Bees. Fresno would win by a score of 15-13. The game saw Salt Lake score 11 runs in the first three frames to go up 11-0, but would see Fresno make one of the most amazing comebacks in PCL history. After scoring four runs in the fourth, and an additional run in the fifth, Fresno scored ten runs in the seventh inning to take a 15-12 lead.
The seventh inning saw Fresno collect seven hits, three walks, three costly errors charged to salt Lake, and one home run during that incredible seventh inning. Juan Perez hit a grand slam home run in the fourth, and Roger Kieschnick drove in five runs with a 2 for 5 game and a home run.
Top Performer of the week–Ian Stewart.
Ian Stewart gets our top performer of the week award thanks to an amazing power performance on Saturday night for the Iowa Cubs. Stewart homered three times and drove in all eight runs for Iowa in their 8-5 win over Round Rock at Principal Park.
The former major leaguer actually tied an Iowa franchise record with his eight runs driven in. Larry Haney in 71, and Tom Egan in 73 are the only other Iowa hitters to drive in eight runs in a game. Stewart who was playing first base and batted eighth, hit his first home run in the first inning, off of Round Rock starter Jake Brigham. His second home run, a two-run blast came in the fourth frame. Finally his third home run was an eight pitch opposite field three-run shot in the bottom of the eighth. Stewart had been struggling this season to find his hitting groove. Before the game Stewart was batting just .146, and collected only his second multi-hit game of the season. Iowa is hoping that this breakout game is just the beginning of Stewart turning his season around and finding his rhythm. Stewart had been taking extra batting practice, and Iowa is hoping that the extra work will start to pay off.
Stewart became the first Iowa Cub player to hit three home runs in a game since Bryan Lahair did it back in 2010. That was Stewart’s 12 career multi-homer game, with four of those coming during his days with the Colorado Rockies. His last multi-homer game came while he was with Colorado Springs back in 2011 when he drove in six runs and slammed two home runs. Check in with us next week for more top performances from around the PCL.