Baby Bird Brief Weekly Report - Week 4

Baby Bird Performers of the Week
Offense - Dwight Smith - OPS of 1.149 for the week, with 2 doubles, a triple & a HR. Smith also picked up 2 walks and 2 SB's
Honorable Mention - J.D. Davis - OPS of 1.114 with a double, a triple & a HR. Davis had 3 walks and 2 K's on the week and picked up 2 SB's

Pitching - Luis Santos - Gave up 1 run in 9 innings last week. Santos allowed 5 hits and a walk, while striking out 13 over 2 games.
Honorable Mention - Randy Wolf - Pitched 7 shut out innings, allowing 4 hits and a walk. Wolf struck out 3 as well

Leaders

Stats of the week that may only interest me
Outfield Assists - 5 - David Harris
Caught Stealing % - 33% - A.J. Jimenez
Hit By Pitch - 9 - Tim Locastro
Of the 39 players who have appeared in Buffalo this year, only 7 have not played at all in MLB. And only 4 are older than me

Buffalo
Buffalo had a rough week with all of the call ups to the big league club. The Herd went 0-6 on the week, scoring 5 runs across the 6 games. Buffalo was shut out 4 times, 3 of the games were 1-0 losses. The pitching was better, keeping most of the games close. Dunedin lost by 1-run 4 times, 2-runs once and also was beat 7-0.

This week, Buffalo travels home to start a 7-game home stand welcoming Durham & Toledo to Coca-Cola Field. Durham started the 6-game streak with 3 wins in Durham. Daniel Norris will start game 1 of the series on Monday night. If all continues on the same path, Miguel Castro should start Tuesday & Scott Copeland on Wednesday.

Over the weekend, Buffalo lost 4-3 in 14 innings, 1-0 in 11 innings & 1-0 to Norfolk. Buffalo had a chance to win on Friday, but blew the lead in the bottom of the 9^th. None of the hitters are looking very hot currently, although Matt Hague is currently riding an 11-game hit streak (.318 14-44). Dalton Pompey hasn't found his stroke since returning to Buffalo, and was thrown out stealing twice over the weekend.

Andrew Albers & Randy Wolf both threw great games on the weekend, going 7 innings each. Albers gave up only an unearned run. Buffalo's pitching continues to perform well, but they are in desperate need for some offense to show up.

New Hampshire
New Hampshire had a .500 week going 1-2 on the road at Reading and 2-1 at home versus Trenton. The FisherCats did allow 6 more runs than they scored as the losses weren't as close as the wins were. New Hampshire has seen their record bounce around quite a bit as they have gone on some hot streaks and some cold runs.

This week, New Hampshire will look for some consistency as they welcome New Britain to town and then head out on a 7-game road trip which begins in Binghamton. Austen Bibens-Dirkx gets the start Monday, Matt Boyd is scheduled to throw Tuesday followed by Casey Lawrence.

Over the weekend, New Hampshire won 2 of 3 as Casey Lawrence and the bullpen won Friday 4-1, Taylor Cole had a better start on Saturday in a 5-4 win and John Anderson got beat up a little bit in a 11-4 loss.

Recently, New Hampshire has some hitters who are on hot streaks. Kevin Nolan is riding a 9-game hit streak (.371 13-35). Jon Berti is currently on an 8-game hitting streak (.460 17-47) with 5 multi-hit games in there. Dwight Smith is also on an 8-game hit streak (.314 11-35). Unfortunately, it seems that NH gets one strong inning a game and then it's hopefully we've done enough to win.

Dunedin
Dunedin went 2-4 last week and continued their trend of getting hammered pretty well in their losses. The closest losing margin last week was 5, as Dunedin was -29 for the week. Since a 3-game win streak that ended on April 26^th, Dunedin is 4-8 with 30 runs for and 80 runs against. The jump of Castro & Osuna seems to have hurt at this level the most, as both pitchers were most likely slotted into Dunedin's rotation.

Looking forward, Dunedin goes on a 7-game road trip starting in Fort Myers, followed by 3 games in Lakeland. Monday's would-be starter, Jeremy Gabryszwski threw 3 innings in relief of Saturday, so it may will be Murphy Smith who takes the ball on Monday.

On the weekend, Dunedin had a 5-2 win and a 15-1 loss to Lakeland. Matt Dean had a 3-run HR in the 1^st inning of the win and Luis Santos had a solid start in the game. It was by far Santos' best start of the season, the first start he hasn't given up a HR. Justin Shafer on the other hand got smacked around pretty well in the Saturday loss, unable to get out of the first inning. It was Shafer's first real struggle of the season, so it will be interesting to see how he bounces back.

Matt Dean has hits in 8 of 10 games, including 2 home runs. Of the prospect hitters, Derrick Loveless struggled over the last week, but still sports a .373 OBP, which is strong, although it's higher than his SLG which isn't ideal. The pitchers still seem to be behind the hitters here, as only Jayson Aquino was the strongest, although he has since been DFA'd and has joined Bradenton in the FSL, who is a Pittsburgh affiliate.

Lansing
Lansing played .500 ball last week as well, joining New Hampshire as Toronto's best affiliate for the week. Lansing actually picked up a +3 run differential for the week. The Lugs ended the week on a down note, losing their last 2 games, each by 1 run.

Looking ahead, Lansing continues a 10-game road trip, playing 4 at South Bend and then finishing up with 3 at West Michigan. Chase De Jong, Jesus Tinoco & Shane Dawson will take the ball in the first 3 games.

Over the weekend, Lansing fell behind early Friday, and couldn't get all the way back, and then fell behind again, tied the game up and lost in 10 innings. Lately, Lansing has been taking a lot of walks, but also striking out quite a bit.

J.D. Davis has been playing pretty well since returning from the disabled list. In his 9 games this year, he has 6 multi-hit games. He's currently riding a 5-game hit streak (.474 9-19) with 3 walks and 2 K's over the streak. Anthony Alford continues to strike out significantly (27.6% K-rate) but also has been taking a lot of walks recently (11 in his last 10 games). Tim Locastro is currently on an 11-game hitting streak (.378 14-37). He is also doing a good job of getting on base as well as his OBP is up to .390

Sean Reid-Foley started and continues to miss bats, but is still wild and gives up hits. He struck out 6 in 3 innings on Saturday.  He also walked 2, had a wild pitch and hit a batter.  SRF ranks third on the team in K's, in at least 10 less innings than the guys ahead of him. The downside is he's also walked 17 and hit 4 guys in 17.1 innings.

Transactions

Chad Jenkins recalled to Toronto
Steve Delabar recalled to Toronto
Scott Copeland optioned to Buffalo
Miguel Castro optioned to Buffalo
Austen Bibens-Dirkx assigned to New Hampshire
Casey Lawrence assigned to New Hampshire
Chris Colabello selected by Toronto
Steve Tolleson sent outright to Buffalo
Jonathan Diaz optioned to Toronto
Luis Perez assigned to New Hampshire
Bobby Korecky activated from 7-day DL
Steve Tolleson elected free agency
John Stilson assigned to Dunedin
Steve Tolleson signed as free agent by Buffalo
Ryan Tepera recalled to Toronto
Chad Jenkins optioned to Buffalo
Kevin Nolan assigned to New Hampshire
Chris Dickerson activated from 7-day DL
Steve Tolleson selected by Toronto
Luis Perez recalled to Buffalo

Michael Lee placed on 7-day DL
Dustin Antolin placed on 7-day DL
Arik Sikula activated from 7-day DL

Brad Allen placed on 7-day DL
Jairo Labourt activated from 7-day DL
Scott Silverstein activated from 7-day DL
Matt Dermody placed on 7-day DL

Jesus Tinoco assigned to Lansing from Bluefield
Chris Carlson placed on 7-day DL