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IL Worcester Red Sox

Ballou on Baseball: July 4 - 10 2022

July 12, 2022 - International League (IL)
Worcester Red Sox News Release


Just how intense was last week for Red Sox fans in these parts?

Their two teams, the Boston variety and the Worcester one, combined to play 13 games, 10 of them against the Yankees and their farm club, the RailRiders - a Triple-A team with a triple hometown, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre.

The Yankees prevailed, 6 games to 4, most of those games of the don't-leave-your-seat nature.

Here in Worcester, it was a week that displayed all of the excitement, and sometimes frustration, of Triple-A baseball. The single most telling fact of the week was probably this one:

Boston starting pitchers for last week had a combined total of 46 major league wins. Worcester starters had a combined total of 180 major league wins. Nick Pivetta was responsible for most of the Boston wins. Chris Sale and Nathan Eovaldi had 179 of the Worcester wins, Geoff Hartlieb 1.

The Boston Red Sox used 17 players in their 11-6 triumph over New York on Sunday night. Six of them started the season in Worcester - Jarren Duran, Jeter Downs, Franchy Cordero, Rob Refsnyder and Kaleb Ort.

That is the dilemma of the Triple-A fan. Would he or she rather watch the Boston Red Sox win with Worcester players, or watch Worcester win with players who could be in Boston?

It is a fan-by-fan perspective and the dynamic is not going to change. In weeks like the last one, it can be a memorable ride either way.

TRIPLE-A TRIVIA

1. Who are the three Hall of Fame members who led their leagues in batting average while playing for a Red Sox Triple-A team?

2. Who was the first foreign-born Boston Triple-A farmhand to win a league MVP Award?

Answers below.

WHAT'S GOING ON

The single biggest deal of last week was probably Sale's tantrum after a mediocre performance on Wednesday. Personally, I thought it was great. Baseball is becoming too sterile - how often do you see a great argument anymore with umpires? - and outbursts like Sale's bring back some of its humanity. I mean, he smashed inanimate objects. Nobody got hurt. He paid for the damages, and the TV set was broken already. Emotion is good, not bad. Let's have more of it. ... Brian Keller has quietly become a pretty important member of the WooSox pitching staff. After a poor start to 2022, Keller has lowered his earned-run average in 11 consecutive appearances. It was at 6.33 after he was hit hard by Rochester on May 13 and has fallen to 3.88 after a great start at Polar Park on Saturday. ... The WooSox have been better defensively in the last couple of weeks. They have been charged with just 4 errors and 2 passed balls in the last 13 games, accounting for 2 unearned runs. One of those is a phony unearned run from an extra-inning game. ... Pinch-hitting has become the baseball equivalent of slowing down for a yellow light - nobody does it anymore. The WooSox have had just 15 pinch-hit appearances in 2022, only two in the entire month of June. The last was by Ronaldo Hernandez on June 21 and it wasn't a strategic move. Hernandez struck out for the rehabbing Christian Arroyo in the seventh inning.

HOMERS ON THE RANGE....

Just before he made his second trip up to Boston, Jeter Downs hit his 30th career home run for Worcester. He is easily the WooSox all-time leader in that category. The home run, in the ninth inning of a 5-3 loss to S-W-B on Friday night, was his first with more than one man on base. Downs has hit 16 solo shots, 13 with one runner on.

Connor Wong's first WooSox home run was a grand slam on June 8, 2021 versus Syracuse. He has hit 13 since then, 12 of them solo.

Ryan Fitzgerald does not have nearly as many WooSox home runs as Downs, but is the team leader in another department - different ballparks homered it. He has hit home runs in seven different parks including 8 in Polar Park. Fitzgerald has also homered in S-W-B, Jacksonville, Syracuse, Toledo, Buffalo and Lehigh Valley.

He is also the WooSox all-time leader in 3-run homers with six including a big one on Sunday. Nobody else has more than three.

Just before he made his second trip up to Boston, Jeter Downs hit his 30th career home run for Worcester. He is easily the WooSox all-time leader in that category. The home run, in the ninth inning of a 5-3 loss to S-W-B on Friday night, was his first with more than one man on base. Downs has hit 16 solo shots, 13 with one runner on.

Connor Wong's first WooSox home run was a grand slam on June 8, 2021 versus Syracuse. He has hit 13 since then, 12 of them solo.

Ryan Fitzgerald does not have nearly as many WooSox home runs as Downs, but is the team leader in another department - different ballparks homered it. He has hit home runs in seven different parks including 8 in Polar Park. Fitzgerald has also homered in S-W-B, Jacksonville, Syracuse, Toledo, Buffalo and Lehigh Valley.

He is also the WooSox all-time leader in 3-run homers with six including a big one on Sunday. Nobody else has more than three.

CATCHING UP WITH

Michael Gettys, who started last season as a WooSox outfielder but converted to a pitcher late in 2021 in the lower minors, is getting a lot of work out of the bullpen for Boston's High-A team in Greenville. Gettys is 2-1 with a 3.45 ERA. All of his appearances have been in relief; he has allowed one earned run in his last 12 2/3 innings.

After spending the first three months of the season at Double-A Reading, first baseman Josh Ockimey is back in Triple-A with the Phillies' partner at Lehigh Valley. Ockimey had nine homers with Reading, increasing his minor league total to 105 but has not had one for Lehigh Valley yet.

ON THE HORIZON

The WooSox are in Norfolk this week to play the Tides for six games. Norfolk, the Orioles' Triple-A affiliate, was known as the Tidewater Tides for many years as a Mets farm team. The Tides were in the International League when Pawtucket joined in 1973 and the two teams played hundreds of times.

Norfolk is 5-5 in its last 10 games. Like the WooSox, the Tides have a losing record at home. Oddly, 7 of the 10 teams in the International League East are below. 500 at home. Just one 1 of 10 IL West teams are in the red at home.

Longtime big league righty Matt Harvey is with the Tides trying to resurrect his career and has made one start with them. He worked 5 2/3 innings versus Jacksonville on Friday and allowed 2 runs with 4 walks and 3 strikeouts. He was not involved in the decision as the Jumbo Shrimp won, 6-3.

TRIVIA ANSWERS

1. An easy one, or should have been. Ted Williams led the American Assn. in 1938 with a .366 average for Minneapolis, Jim Rice hit .337 for Pawtucket to lead the International League in 1974 and Wade Boggs' .335 average paced the IL in 1981.

Luis Alvarado, a native of Puerto Rico, was the International League Most Valuable Player with Louisville in 1969 at age 20. A shortstop, Alvarado batted .292 with 4 homers, 30 doubles and 62 RBIs while being the league's top defensive infielder. A year earlier Alvarado came up to Boston in September and is the last teenager to play for the Red Sox.

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