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Three Fisher Cats make AFL debuts
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Photo courtesy of the NH Fisher Cats
The second day of the Arizona Fall League was a good one for the Blue Jays contingent, particularly for the three that finished 2009 with the Fisher Cats. Gary Cathcart's Phoenix Desert Dogs got their first victory in 2009 against the Mesa Solar Sox 4-2 after an opening day 10-6 defeat at the hands of the Solar Sox.
Picking up the victory on the mound was Eastern League All-Star Reidlier Gonzalez who went three innings allowing one earned run on four hits and no walks while striking out two. Gonzalez faced 12 batters and was able to get ahead in the count with a first pitch strike against 7 of the 10 hitters who didn't put the first pitch in play. Pitchers have far more success working ahead in the count, it leads to less walks and forces batters to swing at borderline strikes to protect the plate.
In three innings Gonzalez threw 37 pitches, 25 for strikes, an average of just over 3 pitches per batter, very efficient. He also induced an impressive 7 groundouts with no flyouts which kept him out of trouble for most of his appearance. Twice Gonzalez was able to work around a pair of lead off hits from Josh Vitters, including a double in the fourth after which he struckout Welington Castillo and got Ryan Mount and PJ Phillips on groundouts. Again in the sixth he erased Vitters' leadoff single with a double play groundball off the bat of Castillo while getting Mount to ground out a second time to finish the inning.
Before that former Fisher Cat Robert Ray got the start for the Desert Dogs and went the first three innings surrendering one run on a homer off the bat of Bryan Petersen leading off the third. Overall he allowed five hits and no walks and struckout four. Ray also had a good ratio of groundouts(4) to flyouts(1) and managed 8 first pitch strikes to 11 batters with 3 first pitches put in play including the home run and a double off the bat of David Cooper in the third inning. Ray labored more than Gonzalez needing 47 pitches to get through 3 innings of work but he pounded the strike zone with 77% of his pitches going for strikes(36).
As mentioned above David Cooper got the start at first base for the Solar Sox and went 1 for 4 with a double while striking out once. He saw just 9 pitches in 4 at-bats putting the ball in play on the first pitch twice reaching once on the double. His pitches per plate appearance will be one of the key stats to keep an eye on for Cooper to see if he can get himself into good hitting counts.
Brad Emaus also saw his first action in the AFL playing third base and batting seventh in the Desert Dogs lineup. He went 1 for 5 with a single and one run scored. The run came in the fifth after reaching on an error by Solar Sox third baseman Josh Vitters, Emaus then came around all the way from first on a double to right field by Cody Cipriano. Emaus was one of just two hitters in the Desert Dogs lineup not to strikeout and saw a total of 21 pitches in 5 plate appearances an average of 4.2 P/PA(pitches per plate appearance). His single in the eighth came on a 2-1 count and he forced the opposing pitcher to throw 6 pitches in two of his at-bats before being retired.
And finally, AJ Jimenez also saw his first action behind the plate while batting ninth for the Desert Dogs. The Solar Sox attempted two steals on Jimenez, succeeding once in the 5th when Mike Stanton stole second but failing in the eighth on an attempt by Josh Vitters. Jimenez also singled and struckout twice finishing the day 1 for 4.
Check back here tomorrow for a recap of today's Fisher Cats related AFL action and we'll also have links to the Batter's Box breakdown of the Blue Jays' top 30 prospects headed into 2010, a list that includes several familiar and soon to be familiar names to Fisher Cats' fans. We'll also have a few links to get you up to speed on the changes going on in the Toronto Blue Jays front office.
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