Jersey Shore - September 2013

September was a do or die month for the D-Bags.  They entered the month down 5 games and needed a great Sept to have a sniff at the playoffs, or so they thought.  After their best month of the season going 17-9, they ended up a staggering 8 games out of the division when it was all said and done.  Greenville hit their stride at the right time went 20-7 for the month and ran away with the division.


Players of the Month
With the team playing so well it was hard to choose just a couple of players for POTM, but here they are:


Mike "Coffin" Bryant: 9 HR, 27 RBI, .375/.425/.702. 25R. After displaying some power during the summer, we finally saw the top prospect and former first round pick break out.  He homered once every 10.5 AB, drove in 27 runs in 25 games and killed opposing pitching.  Hate to pre-mature call him a star, but it seems he is destined for big things in this league.


Milliard Cross: 5 HR, 20 RBI, .433/.520/.750.   What happened to Cross after July?  He more than doubled his HR and RBI and hit 400 over the past 2 months of the season.  He went from guy who played when someone needed a rest to starter.  By far the best month of his career


Scott Powers: 5 XBH, 19 RBI, 15 BB, .340/.427/.436, 6 SB.  After stepping his game in August, it was September that really showed why Jersey dealt the talent they did for Powers.  He was an on base machine hitting leadoff, getting on base at a .420 clip.  Look for this not to be his last time in the POTM column.


SP Hector Hernandez: 3-2, 2.12 ERA.  Hernandez's best month of the season.  4 of 5 Quality starts and one of his losses came in a great performance where he gave up 1 ER.  Hernandez is a pending FA, so this might be the last time he graces the POTM.


MR Jose Gomes: 1 Save, 13.2 IP, 21 K, 1.42 ERA, .55 WHIP.  Gomes was nearly unbelievable in September, and ask any Jersey fan and you will hear, "About time!"  After a season in which Gomes struggled  , for him, he put up his finest month by far.  One bad inning he gave up 3 of his 7 baserunners all month long.  Under the radar, the D-Bags signed Gomes to a 5 year deal.


MR Jamie "Mungo" Saenz:   1 Save, 13.2 IP, 16 K, 1.32 ERA, 1.02 WHIP.  Much like Gomes, Saenz was dominate in the late innings.  The month completed his best season so far and helped the D-Bags hold the lead in many of their winnings during September.


Roster Changes, Questions and Answers
We didn't see too many changes to the roster this month.  Sergio Rodriguez, Joe Hernandez, Edgardo Gonzalez all got a hand full of AB's during September and all showed promise. All 3 have a shot at making the active roster next season.  

Being in end of the season we will likely see a lot of change to the roster.  Several big names players have yet to sign a contract extension which would make them FA's in just weeks time.  These players include SP Jose Brito, SP Hector Hernandez and C Jorge Lozano.  Lozano had a career year and as much as everyone in Jersey would love to see him stay, he is 32 and wants a big contract and rumors have it Jersey doesn't have the money.  The same goes for Brito who was very solid this year and the loss of both Brito and Hernandez would put a big dent in the Jersey rotation.


Speculating into the future, Lozano's role can be filled by Mario Ramirez  who tore up AAA pitching this year and has shown he can hold his own against ML pitching.  The SP isn't so easy projected.  Greg Shaefer was having a good year before going down with an injury, he would be slotted to join the rotation and you have to think another SP would come via trade or free agency.  Unless there are some big moves there seem to be starters slotted at every position, which can never be considered a problem.  


The D-Bags fell 1 win short of their 2nd straight 90 season, but yet finished with their 4th straight winning season.  Maybe next year will be Jersey's first trip to the playoffs, only time will tell.  For now look forward to any moves Jersey makes during the off-season!


GO D-BAGS

Bags Make First Off Season Move

Welcome back Bag fans!! Afte the Bags best season since moving to Jersey, their first roster move of the off season has happened.  Right before the eligible players have filed for free agency talks a deal finally formalized between the Bags and the Knights of New York.  The teams had been in talks for almost a week when a deal was agreed upon. 

The D-Bags agreed to send one of the more popular players in 3B David Pena, who broke out last season witha team high 28 HR, and former inaugural 4th round selection SP Rudy Bourg packing to New York.  In return Jersey will retain some power back with the versatile OF Leon Foster.  Foster plays all 3 OF above average, brings what Jersey most sorely needed as well, power from the right hand side of the plate.  Last season Leon jacked 36 bombs, 42 doubles while driving in 123 runs hitting 5th for the Knights last season.  His bat will be a welcome addition to the lefty-laden roster of Jersey.

When asked about trading Pena, GM Josh Swain said it was a hard one and added, "David is a great kid.  He is a gold glove caliber fielder and hits the ball a long ways.  He is only 27 and we might not have seen his peak yet, but it was a team decision.  We sorely needed a big OF bat, especially a right handed one.  Our 1st-3rd base platoon is a very crowded one, and he was expandable, but we will miss him in the clubhouse."

When Swain mentioned that the 1st-3rd platoon was a crowded one, he wasn't kidding.  Milliard Cross showed splashes of power hitting with his 200-some AB's last year for the D-Bags and the 2012 likely MVP Derrick Wright will get ample time to prove he can handle the position.  He absolutely tore up AAA pitching to the tune of 35 2B, 31 HR, a league record 158 RBI and a triple slash line of .343/.420/.561 and scouts like what they see in this kid.  

On the 3rd base side you have the incumbent and Jersey's MVP of the 2012 season in Parker Morrow who is signed for the next 3 seasons.  In AAA 25 year old Alberto Perez finished last season with a line of .334/.379/.462 while knocking 13 HR's looks ready for some VBL experience and one of the team's top prospects Adam Morrow was very successful in AA after his mid-season promotion and will likely be called up to AAA for the upcoming year.  A very crowded depth chart.

With the trading of SP Rudy Bourg, a spot will open up in the rotation.  Bourg had a lackluster year posting an ERA of 5.15, with a record of 11-12.  The most likely candidate to take Bourg's place would be the 26 year old Rob Goodship who went 12-7 in AAA last year, but posted a very big dominating performance in the last week of the season to keep Jersey's season alive.  Another candidate could be #2 pitching prospect league wide Jerry Paige.  Paige came over in the Vargas trade with Maui last off season.  In AAA he went 15-5, an ERA of 3.44, while striking out 240 batters in just 209 innings.  

According to sources this move might be the first of a couple moves to come this off season to bolster this roster for another playoff run.  We shall see!

Go D-Bags!

Is This Team For Real?

Just over a month ago the Jersey Shore D-Bags sat with a record of 43-51 in the middle of a 10 game road trip and fresh off being swept in a 3 game series by Denver.  The season looked dismal at this point.  They were 14 games behind Pittsburgh for the division and 10 games out of the WC race and the word "fire-sale" was being murmured through the clubhouse and media outlets as the July 31 deadline loomed.  Something clicked after that loss with this team though.

Since then the D-Bags have been white-hot, winning 26 of their last 34 games, moving from 8 games UNDER.500 to 10 games OVER .500.  This run includes winning 8 of their last 10 series, including two 3-game sweeps and 2-game sweeps, the most recent coming this past week with a 4 game sweep over 1st place Pittsburgh.  They have won 11 out of 12 with 7 of those wins coming on the road.  The pitching staff as been more Hendersonville than it has been Jersey Shore, in 21 games in August the staff has yielded more than 4 runs, just 4 times and only one time in the last 12. 

This last 5 game stretch did not come with a few repercussions though.  After this team going for much of the summer months without an injury they suffered two in the same inning just moments apart.  On August 22nd, Curt Lucas replaced Jose Brito to start the 7th inning with the Bags trailing Pittsburgh 3-2.  On a pitch where Lucas got Rich Smith to ground out he immediately grabbed his elbow and signaled for a trainer.  He was taken off the field and the news was disheartening, torn flexor tendon in his pitching elbow, with surgery and rehab it is a year long comeback.  German Huerta came in and relieved Lucas and proceeded to strikeout Elijah Stuart on 5 pitches before pulling himself out of the game as well.  We later learned that he had strained triceps and will keep him on the shelf for up to a month.  Huerta was an important part of last year's bullpen before having control issues and problems avoiding the long ball this year.

The team will recall hard throwing MR Lucio Tapia who struggled with the club earlier this year but has looked much improved in AAA.  They will also call up MR Augusto "Buddy" Robles, who has been on the DL for nearly 5 months with irritation with his ulnar nerve.  He hasn't pitched in a big league game since 2007, but has posted average numbers in AAA the last 3 seasons. 

Each week it seems like someone new is producing on the offensive end, and this past 5 game stretch was no different as David Pena held the hot bat.  He hit in all 5 games, drove in runs in 3 of them, and added 2 HR, bringing his season total to a team high 22.  1B/DH Milliard Cross and 2B Antionio Ruiz also hit in all 5 games and have 10 and 6 game hit streaks respectively. 

 

After the 4 game sweep of the Pirates, Jersey has garnered some attention from the league and are no longer sneaking up, but in the thick of things.  It begs the question though, Is this team for real?  7 games remain in August against contending teams, and 34 games overall is what remains this season.  If this team can keep up it's winnings ways the end of this season could get interesting.  Of Jersey's last 13 games, 7 of them are against Greenville, the team tied with Pittsburgh for the division and WC lead.  Let's hope for a fun one.

GO D-BAGS

Sneaking Up

Our last update saw your beloved D-Bags sitting at .500 since the first time since the opening weeks of the season.  Over the past 9 games, they have treated us to some of the best baseball they have played all year, going 7-2 and climbing to 5 games over .500 for the best mark of the 2012 season.  With the recent surge they have snuck up to 5.5 games behind Wild Card leader and division foe Greenville, and 4.5 games back of Oklahoma.  

Over those last 9 games, the offense is averaging 5.8 runs per game, which is almost a run above their season average, but it hasn't been the offense that has been winning them games, for the first time in awhile we can, it has been the pitching.  In 8 of the last 9 games played the starter has made it at least through 7 innings, and only once gave up more than 4 runs.  That includes 2 excellent starts and wins from Jose Brito, while Jose Reyes has ran his undefeated streak to 9 starts.  The bullpen has been good, though they were responsible for one of the two losses.  They have given up 5 ER over the 9 game span.

On the offensive side of things, it has been a complete team effort.  Not just one person has stepped up to carry the team.  In 9 games, 10 different players have multi-hit games.  This includes Antonio Ruiz having a two triple game, Ik-jun Ye's muti HR game, Mario Ramirez's re-found swing and Milliard Cross's excellent play since being recalled from AAA to replace the recently traded Juan Garcia.  

As good as the D-Bags have been playing, they are running out of time to make a run.  Only 39 games remain, and while it might seem like a good number of games, being 5.5 games out is a tough number to make up.  Their 11-5 record for the month has gained them exactly 1.5 games in the WC standings.  The up coming 2 weeks will not be easy and will tell the fate of this team.  Tomorrow they start a 4 game series AT division leading Pittsburgh, who has won 6 games in a row.  Pittsburgh holds the series edge at 6-5 right now.  Immediately after that they travel to Oklahoma, who sits in front of Jersey in the WC by 4.5 games, for a 3 game set.  The D-Bags hold the series edge 4-2. An off day, then Pittsburgh comes to Jersey for a quick 2 game set before the Bags head to Madison for a 3 game set to the end the month.  Madison and Jersey are currently tied with a 64-59 record.  12 games against teams over .500.  It will be a very telling next 2 weeks!

GO D-BAGS!