Road To Arlington: Rangers Farm Report (9/6)

Posted on September 6th, 2009 6:00am by Ryan Jones
Filed under Baseball, Farm Report, Rangers prospects, Texas Rangers

Triple-A:

Game 1 – @Memphis 7, Oklahoma City 2  F/7

RHP Brian Gordon (7-3; 3.49) was roughed up for five runs on six hits and a walk in just four innings. LHP Mike Hinckley (1-1; 3.26) finished the game off with two unremarkable innings, allowing three hits, a walk, and two earned runs while striking out three.

SS Joaquin Arias and 1B Royce Huffman each walked and singled in four plate appearances, and Arias stole a pair of bases and scored on a wild pitch in the 3rd. RF Jared Bolden got Oklahoma City’s lone RBI with his first triple-A homer in the 7th inning.

Game 2 – @Memphis 5, Oklahoma City 3  F/7

The nightcap wasn’t much more successful with LHP Chris Cooper making his first start for the RedHawks, going 4.1 innings and letting four runs score on seven hits. RHP Jailen Peguero (0-1; 3.86) fared a bit better, allowing a run in 1.2 frames while striking out two.

DH Justin Leone (.211/.318/.474) was the offensive star of the game, driving in all of Oklahoma City’s runs with a three-run homer in the 4th. SS Casey Benjamin (.221/.344/.324) went 2-3 with a pair of singles and a run scored, and 2B Adam Fox (.194/.242/.290) tried to boost his fledgling average with a double in three at bats.

Double-A: @Midland 4, Frisco 3

RHP Danny Gutierrez, just acquired from the Royals for Manny Pina and Tim Smith, made a very solid RoughRiders debut. Gutierrez needed 84 pitches to work through five innings, allowing just three hits, two runs, no walks, and fanning three. LHP Zach Phillips (0-0; 1.60) took over for Gutierrez, surrendering a run in three innings from the pen, but RHP Clayton Hamilton (1-4; 4.47) couldn’t get through the 9th, allowing a two-out homer to end the game.

Frisco got its runs on a pair of homers. RF Steven Murphy belted a two-run shot in the 4th but struck out in his three other at bats, and 3B Jonathan Greene followed in the 5th with a solo blast. Greene also singled.

Advanced-A: @Bakersfield 8, Rancho Cucamonga 4
RHP Tanner Roark (10-0; 2.70) may not have much else to prove in the hitter friendly Cal League. Roark fired off seven masterful innings, shutting the Quakes out on five hits, a walk, and 11 strikeouts. Roark now has eight wins in his last nine appearances and has earned a win in six consecutive starts. For the season, he’s struck out 91 batters in 86.1 innings while holding Cal League opponents to a .217 average. All of Rancho Cucamonga’s runs came across against LHP Glenn Swanson (1-1; 3.12), who tossed a rough 8th inning, allowing four runs on four hits and two walks.

DH Mauro Gomez (.288/.336/.542) was a one-man wrecking crew for the second straight night, going 3-4 with a homer and six RBI. His combined numbers over his last two games are as follows: 7-9 with a double, a triple, three homers, and 11 RBI. He turns 25 tomorrow.

LF Mike Bianucci also homered, and CF David Paisano drove in Bakersfield’s second run with a double in the 2nd inning.

Low-A: @Kannapolis 10, Hickory 3

A game that started well for RHP Joe Wieland (4-6; 5.31) turned ugly quickly in the 5th. Wieland shut Kannapolis out for three frames before allowing his first run in the 4th inning. But in the 5th, the Intimidators led the inning off with a triple, a single, and a homer before Wieland could get a pair of groundouts to seemingly curb the damage. But a two-out error by SS Leury Garcia opened the floodgates, as Wieland allowed the next three batters he faced to reach before getting pulled. His replacement, RHP Fabio Castillo, walked the first batter he faced and then hit Lee Fischer before giving up a bases clearing double.

Of Hickory’s six hits, two came from 2B Andres James (.272/.287/.347), and two more came from 3B Matt West (.234/.338/.335), who also had the Crawdads’ only two RBI. In addition to his costly fielding error, SS Leury Garcia went 0-4 with 4 Ks.

Short-season: Yakima 5 @ Spokane 2

RHP Ben Henry (2-5; 6.04) surrendered four hits and three walks in 4.1 innings which led to 3 Yakima runs, although none of them were earned. Henry managed to strike out six batters. RHP Reinier Bermudez (1-2; 1.67) followed with a strange 2.2 inning stint of his own, allowing three hits and a walk, but recording six of his eight outs via the K.

RF Jared Prince (.287/.390/.426) belted a two-run homer in the 3rd to account for all of Spokane’s offense. CF Joey Bonadonna and C Alberto Puello each had a single and a double to go with a walk.

Bookmark and Share
4 Comments to “Road To Arlington: Rangers Farm Report (9/6)”
  • Buck @ September 6th, 2009 at 9:05 am

    Tanner Roark posting those kind of numbers at Bakersfield is impressive. I haven’t heard too much about him.

    Is it too late to bump him up to Frisco?

  • Marcus @ September 6th, 2009 at 9:24 am

    @Buck: I would assume that with Frisco’s season all but over and Bakersfield heading to the playoffs that Roark will stay where he is. But you are right, those numbers are down right silly.

  • jb @ September 6th, 2009 at 11:22 am

    wonder if tanner is kin to howard?

  • Kaisersoze @ September 6th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    I was at Tanner Roark’s start last night, I posted this on Jamey Newberg’s site –

    I wanted to see Tanner Roark pitch, he is a guy I’ve thought was a big sleeper since he was drafted last year. He pitched well with 7 shutout innings with 11 strikeouts. He was in control the whole night and I didn’t see a pitch count but he seemed to throw very few balls for a guy that racked up 11Ks. He “pitched backwards” in using his off speed pitch to set up the fastball, he has a slow curve that seems almost like a change. He can put it low in the strike zone or out of the zone, change speeds on it and the pitch has a two foot drop. Then he pounds his FB low in the strike zone and occasionally throws a mid 90′s FB up high that a batter will chase or occasionally drop in a straight change. He is 10 – 0 for the season with an ERA under 3, he apparently has some bout of control problems when he got promoted to AA and came back to Bakersfield, but had very good control last night. I’d love to see the numbers but every strikeout seemed to be on a 1-2 count and he rarely had 3 balls on a batter, much less walking guys. (He did have one walk in 7 IP). His FB velocity seems to have increased also, I never saw the gun but he seemed to be in the low 90′s with most fastballs but occasionally going up to 94 or 95.

    Overall my opinion didn’t change – that he will end up as a reliever in the majors and be a very good one some day, though the slow speed of his main pitch gives me just a hint of worry that he may have some adjustment to major league hitters. Overall he was what I expected to see, a guy that will be a good ML reliever in 2011.

    Tommy Mendonca was another guy I wanted to see, he had a good game with two hits and a walk. He didn’t have any plays at 3B so I didn’t’ get to see the magic glove, but the guy who runs the booster club told me is a great guy that is an obvious leader. You can tell he is transitioning from a guy that swings from the heals to a more balanced approach, he had a couple of opposite field hits and showed a good batting eye at the plate as well. He was sent twice on steals but had the ball hit foul, he seems to have much better foot speed than you would expect from a 3B. Not blazing fast but MY type of speed. He still has a ways to go on transitioning his hitting approach but it is obvious why he was a high draft choice.