Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Tuesday Batting Cage

-- All this yap about Garrett Jones and solo homers suggesting that he's not clutch is a little misguided this season (though a good case could be made for 2009). Jones has hit 5 of his 10 homers with men aboard, is batting .274 with RISP, exactly his season average, and .287 with runners on going into tonight.

129 of his 230 at-bats have come with the bases empty, so the majority of time, there just isn't anyone on for him to drive in. We'll see what the retooled top of the order will do for him; he should get lots of RBI opportunities if they keep on keepin' on, so we should find out what kind of run producer he really is.

-- Rob Biertempfel of the Tribune Review tweets that neither Charlie Morton nor Steve Pearce have a free pass to return to Pittsburgh after their rehab. We sure hope this doesn't mean that the Ryan Doumit-at-first-base brainstorm is still alive and kickin'.

He added that the Braves sent Jesse Chavez to AAA; he was 0-1 with a 7.33 ERA and gave up 5 homers in 23-1/3 innings.

-- Seattle DFA'd Ian Snell today. The 28-year-old right-hander is 0-5 with a 6.41 ERA, 5.1 K/9 and 4.9 BB/9 in 46-1/3 innings. They'll eat the remainder of his $4.25M contract; they're off the hook after that, as 2011-12 were team option years.

-- A lot of family love for guys with local ties was shown in this year's draft. Patrick Leyland, Jim's son, who caught at Canevin, was drafted by the Tigers. Mark Tracy, who played at Duquesne, was drafted as a catcher by the Rockies, the team his dad Jim manages.

Lloyd McClendon's boy Bo (OK, mom, Justin) from Valparaiso was also taken by the Tigers, where Lloyd serves as hitting coach. John "T-Bone" Shelby, who is a first base coach for the O's now, had his son Jeremy from Grambling selected by Baltimore.

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