FL Florence Y'alls

Florence Freedom Game Notes

Published on May 22, 2015 under Frontier League (FL)
Florence Y'alls News Release


FLORENCE FREEDOM (5-1) @ EVANSVILLE OTTERS (4-2)

Friday, May 22, 2015 - 7:35 p.m. ET

Historic Bosse Field - Evansville, IN

Game #7 - Road Game #1 (5-1), (0-0)

Florence: RHP #16 Jake Stephens (0-1, 4.97 ERA, 2014)

Evansville: RHP #19 Preston Olson (1-0, 1.50 ERA)

Last time out...

Chuck Weaver tossed eight shutout innings, allowing only one hit, while striking out 11 batters, in the Freedom's 9-0 win over the Frontier Greys on Thursday night. With the victory the Freedom took two out of three from the Greys. A five run first inning gave the Freedom the early lead. They benefited from Greys starter Richard Bielski's control issues as they drew three walks, with two of them coming around to score. Steve Carrillo's two-out RBI double plated the first run of the game and Sean Mahley followed with a two-RBI double to make the score 3-0 in favor of the Freedom. A Gaby Juarbe RBI single extended the lead to 4-0 and the final run scored on an infield single from Elvin Rodriguez and a throwing error by Zach Tanner. Florence added another run in the third on another Juarbe RBI single and then Jake Luce clobbered a three-run home run in the sixth to complete the scoring.

For Starters...

Jake Stephens makes his first start of the season tonight. Stephens made his professional debut with the Grizzlies in 2013. In two seasons with Gateway he went 6-4 with a 4.32 ERA in 16 appearances, 10 starts. Stephens began his collegiate baseball career at Northwest Florida State College. He then transferred to NCAA Division II West Florida. He was mostly a starter at West Florida. However, he did make five relief appearances. During his senior season Stephens went 8-1 with a 1.63 ERA. He lowered his ERA from his junior season when it had been 3.57. During his senior year Stephens appeared in 15 games starting 11 of them. He threw three complete games, gave up 14 earned runs, walked 17 and struck out 52 hitters. His senior campaign ended with him owning a .206 opponent batting average.

Early results....

Last year the Freedom finished with the worst batting average in the Frontier League at .240. Through six games in 2015 the Freedom have the best batting average in the Frontier League at .291. Their 33 runs scored are second in the league. New additions to the squad Cody Bishop (8-20, .400), Daniel Fraga (7-19, .368) and Jake Luce (8-22, .364) have been key to Florence's early success.

Mr. RBI...

Jake Luce is making the most of his early opportunities with runners in scoring position as he leads the Frontier League in RBI with seven. Luce is hitting a scalding .571 with runners in scoring position.

On the Road...

Tonight marks the first road game of the 2015 season for the Freedom. They struggled away from home in 2014, finishing 13-29 with only two road series wins.

Against the Otters...

The Freedom went 3-6 against the Evansville Otters in 2014. They particularly struggled at Historic Bosse Field, finishing the season 1-5 at the venerable ballpark.

Shutouts...

The Freedom shutout the Greys last night after being shutout the night before. They shutout six opponents and were shutout themselves five times in 2014.

Frontier League Player of the Week...

Cody Bishop was named Frontier League Player of the Week for May 14-17. In his first season in the Frontier League as a member of the Florence Freedom, he recorded at least one hit in each game of his team's three-game sweep of the Joliet Slammers to open the 2015 season. Last Friday, Bishop went 3-4 with a home run, two doubles, one RBI, and one run scored in Florence's 6-5 victory. He then followed that performance with a 2-3 night on Saturday hitting his second home run of the season while scoring two runs and driving in one in a 10-4 rout of Joliet to complete the sweep.

Excellent Eberle....

Sam Eberle is picking up right where he left off in 2014, hitting .348 (8-23) to start the year with two home runs and four RBI. Eberle already has four multi hit games to start the season.

Check out the Florence Y'alls Statistics

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Frontier League Stories from May 22, 2015


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