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Wilmington Blue Rocks

Josh Staumont Stuns Dash, Strikes Out 12 in Rocks 3-1 Win

June 13, 2016 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


Wilmington, DE - Josh Staumont was at his most devastating on Monday night at Frawley Stadium. The Wilmington Blue Rocks (22-39) starter was almost untouchable against the Winston-Salem Dash (25-39) as the California native punched at 12 in five innings and led the Rocks to a 3-1 series opening win. It would not have been possible if not for Alfredo Escalera's first long ball of the season, a two-run shot to left in the third inning.

Staumont immediately made it known that it was going to be a big strikeout night for him. He punched out the first three batters he faced and the Blue Crew offense responded in the bottom of the first. Cody Jones reached on a walk to begin the frame and was bunted over to second. After a lineout kept him there with two outs, a walk by Wander Franco placed men at first and second with the two down. That set the stage for Elier Hernandez who pulled flyball single down the line in left for a 1-0 lead.

The Rocks starter went right back to it in the second and struck out the side once again. He kept the Dash off the board through the first three frames and that is when Escalera contributed all the offense the boys from Frawley would need. Humberto Arteaga ripped the first pitch of the inning between the hole in third and short before Escalera took a 1-1 pitch on the inner half and crushed it over the wall in left for a two-run shot. The dinger put the Rocks up 3-0 and Staumont responded with a pair of strikeouts in the fourth. He finally ran into trouble in the fifth inning, walking home a run after loading the bases, but he escaped any further damage by punching out Marcus Davis for his 12th strikeout of the night.

Manger Jamie Quirk proceeded to turn the ball over to the bullpen because Staumont hit his pitch limit, and the man he chose, Jake Newberry, was the right choice. Newberry was just as good as Staumont. The righty, who also hails from California, retired the side in the sixth while striking out a batter, picked up another strikeout in the seventh before finishing the game with back-to-back perfect frames including recording the final two outs on strikeouts to preserve the 3-1 win.

Staumont grabs his second win of the season to move to 2-6 on the year while Matt Cooper takes the loss and drops to 4-5 for the Dash and Newberry picks up his first save of the season. The boys from Frawley will look to secure their first winning homestand of the year when they send LHP Foster Griffin (1-3, 7.59) to the mound to take on RHP Thad Lowry (5-4, 4.09). For tickets call the Blue Rocks ticket office at 302-888-BLUE or get tickets online at BlueRocks.com. Fans interested in listening to the game can tune in to WGLS-FM 89.7 or go to BlueRocks.com for all the game action.

Pebbles of Knowledge

Josh Staumont had his way with the Winston-Salem Dash on Monday night. Although he went just five innings, he still set a new career high in strikeouts with 12 while allowing just one run and three walks. For Staumont, the 12 punchouts pushed him past his previous career high of nine, which he had done twice, most recently against the Carolina Mudcats on April 28. Staumont was not alone in racking up the strikeouts either. Rocks reliever Jake Newberry came in to relieve Staumont and pitched four innings of scoreless one hit baseball for his first save of the season. He struck out four in the four frames making a total of 16 strikeouts for the staff. The 16 strikeouts were two shy of the franchise record for a nine inning game. The Blue Crew has struck out 18 batters in a nine inning game on two occasions with the most recent coming on July 9, 2013 against Frederick in an 8-1 win.

It took a while for Chad Johnson to find his swing this season, but all of a sudden the catcher is hitting his groove. After going 83 games without hitting a home run, (dating back to last July), Johnson hit two in the four game series against Salem. The first-year Blue Rock did not hit a home run on Monday night, but he did chip in with a 1-for-3 performance and became just the second member of the squad to reach double digits (Ryan O'Hearn's 12-gamer in April being the other). He is piling up the extra base hits during that time, racking up the two dingers, three doubles and his only triple of the year. Overall during the last ten affairs, Johnson is 14-for-37 with six extra base hits, eight RBI and three runs scored. He has also walked three times during the streak, upping his team-leading total of free passes to 26 on the season- ten more than any other teammate.

It was not long ago when Alfredo Escalera was floundering at the plate, but the outfielder has turned things around in a hurry, and took his biggest swing of the season on Monday. With the Rocks leading 1-0 in the bottom of the third inning, Escalera smashed a 1-1 pitch over the wall in left for his first home run of the year. The two-run blast gave the Rocks the edge they needed in the 3-1 victory. He has now hit safely in eight of his last ten games while reaching in nine of those affairs. In that span his average his jumped from .256 to .276 thanks to going 15-for-38 in the last ten games. The three-hole hitter has racked up multiple hit games in five of those contests including two three-hit outings. He has scored five times, driving in six, in addition to collecting three doubles and also walking three times with the home run.

When Escalera lined out to the first basemen Nick Basto in the bottom of the first inning, it extended the Rocks futility with runners in scoring position against the Dash to 0-for-24. They spent the final three games of their series down in Winston-Salem going hitless with runners at either second or third. However, Elier Hernandez immediately snapped that streak when he plopped a fly ball fair down the left-field line and driving in Cody Jones with the first run of the game. The Blue Crew though went empty in their next four attempts, finishing the game 1-for-6 and now are one for the last 29 in the crucial category.

They Said It

Blue Rocks Manager Jamie Quirk

"(Josh Staumont)'s curveball was very good today. He got a lot of strikeouts on the curveball to complement it he throws his fastball in the mid to upper 90's. When he backed it up with a good curveball he got a lot of swings and misses his curveball was real good today."

"He threw a lot of pitches. Five innings 96 pitches, that's a lot. When you strike out people you throw a lot of pitches. It's a good problem but efficiency is why he was only able to go five. He got a little wild there in the last inning but guys who strike out people are going to throw a lot of pitches."

"He was 95-100 pitches going into the game and he threw 96 through the fifth and that was enough."

"(Matt Cooper) wasn't on his game today. He was struggling with his delivery it looked like, he was a little frustrated. We saw him in (Winston-Salem) and he was much better. Today it didn't look like he was in rhythm very much. He only gave up four hits but one of them was a big homer and that was huge for us. He was not striking people out today. He's the league leader in strikeouts; he's in the all-star game. We did a good job making him pitch."

"(Alfredo Escalera) is swinging well and he got a pitch that he could pull and he put a great swing on it. You don't see many balls hit here where as soon as it's hit you knew it was out. And he did a nice job. He's been swinging well and that is one thing (Abraham Nunez) has been working with him on pulling the ball more. When you get into good counts don't just settle for a single, try to do some damage you're hitting third, and he did on that one it was nice. It was his first homerun of the year but it was a good one."

Blue Rocks Starting Pitcher Josh Staumont

"The Royals have been working on getting a lot more consistency with my windup. Most of the guys that do really well in the major leagues, especially throwing a little bit harder, seem to go over the head and it collects a lot more. It was just adding something that you could focus on to get yourself in the right position before coming home."

"I would say that going over the head allowed success to happen, I wouldn't say it was the direct cause of it. I think we've been working hard recently and we've been going in the right direction. Things click and things turn out well, hopefully it continues. At the same time you can go out and have a poor outing next time and do everything you just did. I think it's all going in the right direction and I feel good about it."

"A lot of times teams either come out of the gate swinging or looking. You could tell these guys were aggressive first pitch for the first half inning. It allowed me to jump ahead and they were chasing a little bit. As soon as they turned around and started watching a little more you had to adjust the game. Baseball is all about that, making adjustments here and there. I think today was just a little bit easier to make those adjustments it seemed."

"You see all these guys so often, especially because in the minor leagues you have a lot of teams and players that are going up with you. You see these guys so often and do so many charts on them, it does help but I don't think a player will do most of his trends going week to week compared to game to game. A lot of the time you're going on the swing before or the at bat before and gauge where he's at."

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Carolina League Stories from June 13, 2016


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