Minor Action: 5/15-5/16

It was a terrible game in Cleveland tonight....Cavs game, that is.  Fortunately the Tribe won and the minor league teams finished off a two day sweep with victories in Buffalo, Akron, and a blow-out in Kinston.

May 15: Buffalo 7, Ottawa 6
May 16: Buffalo 3, Ottawa 2 (10 innings)

Great starts from Sean Smith (6IP,3H,0R,2BB,4K) and Jason Stanford (8IP,8H,2R,1BB,0K) helped assist Buffalo to two victories.  Smith's ERA now stands at a robust 1.78.  Ryan Mulhern and Ben Francisco both raised their season averages over .330 with strong outings, Mulhern providing his 8th HR. On the other end of the stick, Big League Choo is in a big league slump, going 5 for his last 40, dropping his average to .200.

May 15: Akron 13, Bowie 6
May 16: Akron 3, Bowie 2

Tuesday was a good night for Akron's offense as Crowe (1), Cabrera (4) , and Barton (4) all homered.  Unfortunately, Cabrera later left the game after a successful sac bunt and did not play in tonight's game.  I haven't seen anything about an injury, so hopefully it's not anything serious.  JD Martin's rocky season continued that way with an up and down outing Tuesday (5IP,5H,3ER,1BB,1K).  Scott Lewis was strong tonight (5.2IP,5H,1R,2BB,4K) and Jensen Lewis picked up the victory with another solid relief effort (2IP,2H,0BB,2K).

May 15: Kinston 4, Frederick 3 (11 innings)
May 16: Kinston 16, Frederick 4

Kinston won an 11-inning affair against Frederick Tuesday night and came back with a mid-day blowout of them today.  Tuesday's game featured a solid, if unspectacular, start from David Huff followed by 5 innings of shutout relief from Jeff Stevens (1.24 ERA, 5.0 K/BB) and Kyle Collins.  Max Ramirez knocked in 3 runs to keep Kinston in the game offensively until Rivero brought in the winning run with a sac fly.  Following today's game, Ramirez has a .306/.450/.509 line suggesting he might be ready to be challenged by some AA pitchers (although if he's gonna stick at C, he's probably got a lot more work to do there).  The offensive star of today's blowout was 24-year old utilityman, Chris Gimenez who put up a hat-trick of homer runs.  The effort brought his season total to 8 with a pretty decent .267/.368/.589 line.  He's probably too old to spend much time thinking about him, but you have to commend the effort.  Stephen Head (5) and John Drennen (5) also went deep.  And Wes Hodges might be starting to make some adjustments...he's only hitting .200 over his last 10 games and his average has dropped to .250, but he's drawn 4 walks against 5 Ks (he had a 2B and a walk in 5 PAs today).

May 15: Lake County 8, Lakewood 4
May 16: Off

Lake County was off today but won yesterday.  Jason Denham (2), Roman Pena (4), and Matt Whitney (8) all went deep in the game, Denham also added a 3B and a BB.  Since his progress has to be mentioned in every outing until he gets promoted, Jared Goedert went 1-4 with a walk and scored 2 runs.  Rough game for the slugger.  Josh Tomlin continues to pitch very well out of the Lake County pen (2.33 ERA, 30K, 4BB, 27IP).