Bus Leagues Express: May 19

Top stories

Bauer, Odorizzi make AAA debuts with different results: In two days, both Arizona and Kansas City promoted their top pitching prospect to AAA. Trevor Bauer eased concerns of him having to deal with tough PCL parks in his first start with a tremendous win against Oklahoma City. In eight innings, Bauer only allowed one run on four hits and a walk, and he struck out 11 batters. He threw 64% strikes which is very good for him. Odorizzi got credit for a quality start with three runs allowed in 6.2 innings, but he yielded nine hits and a walk and only struck out four. It will likely take more time for him to adjust to the higher level, and there’s no rush to get him to the majors.

Reno gets home run from unlikely source: In that same game, Bauer got some support from a player most probably forgot about. It won’t be talked about much and forgotten soon, but first baseman Mike Jacobs‘ solo home run decided the game in Reno’s 2-1 win. Last season, Jacobs became the first athlete in an American professional sport to be suspended for HGH, and his 50 game suspension ended about two weeks ago. After a great 2011 campaign with Colorado Springs, Jacobs has gotten off to a rough start this year, batting just .150 with a .561 OPS in nine games. Due to the suspension, it could take him a while to get back up to game speed.

Empire State tops Toledo in bizarre game: Just looking at the box score, Friday night’s game between Empire State and Toledo is just a blink of history’s eye, but digging deeper it’s easy to see that it was different. The game began despite a 49 minute power outage at the stadium, and it got off to a fast start with a three run homer by Steve Pearce in the top of the first, the first of seven home runs in this game. The most notable of those home runs was probably Eric Patterson‘s in the 3rd when his fly ball off the center field wall got away from Raymond Kruml, resulting in an inside-the-park home run. Not enough highlights? In the 6th inning, the Mud Hens turned a triple play when Francisco Cervelli grounded to third and the Toledo infield quickly turned the around the horn triple play.

Lehigh Valley sweeps, shuts out Indianapolis: Sweeps are nothing new in baseball, but this week Indianapolis was the victim of great IronPigs pitching and did not score a single run in the four game series. The Lehigh Valley starters for the week included Tyler Cloyd, Scott Elarton, Dave Bush and Pat Misch. Cloyd is the only prospect of the bunch, and his status is fringy at best. The Indians currently sit with some of the most dreadful offensive numbers in the league, 12th out of 14th in runs and dead last in OPS. It was actually the 6th straight shutout Indianapolis was involved in; they beat Norfolk before the Lehigh Valley series started, and that game followed a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Norfolk.

Straily strikes out 15 in dominating effort: Dan Straily is a bit of a pop-up guy in the Oakland organization, along with a couple other pitchers that have been improving their stock. Friday night, he had what I believe is the season high in strikeouts for a pro pitcher with 15. It’s his third double digit strikeout game of the year, and he now has 69 in 52.1 innings. That doesn’t quite put him first in the minors because Tony Cingrani also dominated Friday, but he is second. In Midland’s 6-5 win, he completely outpitched top Astros prospect Jarred Cosart but was not credited with the win due to a late, futile rally by Corpus Christi.

Benches clear in Visalia: In Visalia’s annual celebration of the Mudville Nine, San Jose’s Andrew Susac played a version of Cole Hamels‘ old school baseball. In the second inning, Rawhide outfielder Ryan LaPensee tried scoring an inside-the-park home run, but he was out by quite a bit. He slid hard into home plate, and Susac took exception to this and began throwing punches. Both LaPensee and Susac were ejected, and supplemental discipline is likely coming for a kind of incident not common in the minors. San Jose used an eight run 8th inning to beat the Rawhide 13-8.

On tap today

MiLB.TV schedule

Chien-Ming Wang makes third rehab appearance

Neil Ramirez hopes to turn around season

Tyler Matzek makes another start

Parker Markel comes off the DL

If you know of a player performance or article that should be shared, please let me know on Twitter at @5runrally!