Bus Leagues Express: August 4

Congratulations to High Desert’s Leon Landry for hitting for the cycle. He’s new to the Seattle organization, but he’s not new to the Cal League, and he’s picking up where he left off with Rancho Cucamonga.

Top stories

Duda homers in Buffalo win: Coming into the season, a lot of people expecting Mets outfielder Lucas Duda to have a breakout season for the rebuilding organization. After posting a .852 OPS in 100 games in 2011, Duda’s power dipped big time this year, and he found himself back in Buffalo to get his swing back. He’s off to what could be called a slow start in AAA; through the first seven games, he’s batting just .207 with a .568 OPS. His first extra base hit came Friday night with a 1st inning two run homer that set the tone in Buffalo’s 13-7 win over Syracuse. It was clearly Duda’s best game since the demotion with three hits, a walk and three runs scored. Every team needs left-handed power, and it’s not surprising that the Mets started sinking in the standings right around the time Duda’s slump kicked into high gear.

San Jose has big first inning: It may be a down year compared to typical San Jose Giants baseball, but that certainly didn’t stop them Friday night. In the first inning, every player in the starting nine reached base in their first plate appearance. With seven hits, a walk and two errors, seven runs were in when leadoff hitter Carter Jurica came up for his second at-bat. When Joe Panik collected his second hit of the inning, he drove in two runs to stretch the lead to 9-0. Starter Max Russell failed to record an out and was charged with six runs. They found themselves in an early hole, but Inland Empire nearly fought back; they scored six of the next seven runs but eventually fell 11-6.

Williams out for season: After diving for a ball and injuring his non-throwing shoulder on July 25th, it was announced that Yankees prospect Mason Williams will miss the rest of the season with labrum surgery. The 20 year old outfielder was in the midst of a breakout year that saw him get promoted from low-A to high-A halfway through the season. The athletic center fielder batted over .300 with Charleston and was starting to heat up with Tampa before the injury sidelined him. Williams is expected to be ready for spring training where he’ll resume his career potentially as the Yankees’ #1 prospect.

Wood tops Kannapolis for second pro win: The Braves traditionally scout their home state very well, so it wasn’t a surprise that they picked up Georgia’s Alex Wood in the second rune in June’s amateur draft. They immediately assigned him to low-A Rome where he’s had no trouble adjusting to pro ball. In his Friday night start, he allowed one run in five innings with eight strikeouts in Rome’s 9-1 win, stretching their win streak to 12 games. In 30 pro innings so far, Wood has a 1.80 ERA and 0.80 WHIP with 27 strikeouts. The big lefty works with a plus fastball and potential plus curveball, and the Braves hope his SEC experience could have him advance through the minors quickly.

Sanburn pitches two innings in debut: It’s no secret that Oakland prefers college pitching to high school pitching when it comes to the draft, and Nolan Sanburn was their first pitcher off the board after taking four position players to start the draft. Arkansas’ former swingman made his pro debut Friday night in Vermont, striking out two in two scoreless innings, allowing two hits. Although he likely won’t remain a starter in pro ball, but he does have set-up man potential. His fastball sits in the mid 90′s, and he complements it with a plus breaking ball.

Princeton prevails in 23 innings: After 17 innings Thursday night, the Princeton Rays and Pulaski Mariners played to an 8-8 tie. At 1 AM, they decided to suspend the game until Friday. The two teams played five more scoreless innings after the restart before Princeton finally broke through with four runs in the top half of the 23rd. After the first two Rays were hit by pitches, a throwing error by pitcher Domingo Brazoban allowed them to come around to score, and two more runs would later score. In the bottom half of the inning, Pulaski loaded the bases with one out, but they were only able to score one and lost 12-9. In the seven hour, 48 minute game, 19 pitchers were used between the two teams, and Oscar Hernandez went 0/8.

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