I was at a game in Manchester last week, watching Henderson Alvarez light up the stadium radar gun, when I made an idle comment on Twitter about how hard the 21-year-old Venezuelan was throwing. A couple minutes later, a friend responded to explain that while Alvarez’s fastball can indeed approach triple digits, his secondary stuff needs work and he’s been hit a little bit in the Eastern League and throwing hard by itself doesn’t...
One of three players* acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for Roy Halladay in December 2009, Travis d’Arnaud is the top catching prospect in the Blue Jays system and the 36th ranked prospect on Baseball America’s preseason Top 100. Currently playing for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, d’Arnaud sat down with me before this evening’s game against Portland to talk about what it’s like being on the disabled list, how he and his...
The season is young, but I’ve already made my way up to New Hampshire for two of the team’s five games. When I stay home and spend time with my family, the team is 3-0, including a defeat of Yankees #3 prospect Dellin Betances. When I’m in attendance? Things go very, very wrong for the home team. The Fisher Cats lost to the Reading Phillies tonight, 13-1, behind a 5-5 performance by first baseman...
Just to the west of Clearwater, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and on the northern reaches of the Tampa Bay area lies Dunedin, birthplace of the voice of Space Ghost and home to the Dunedin Blue Jays, Class-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Last Saturday, I made my second trip to Dunedin. Although I was there a few years ago for a spring training game, this past weekend I made...
2012 05 14 Scranton Wilks Barre/ Empire State Yankees vs Pawtucket Red Sox
