Check out the @BluefieldJays Twitter page for mid-game updates
BLUE JAYS (8-13)
1 Dwight Smith Jr. CF
2 Dickie Joe Thon SS
3 Santiago Nessy C
4 Art Charles 1B
5 Christian Lopes 2B
6 Eric Arce LF
7 Matt Dean 3B
8 Nico Taylor RF
9 Jacob Anderson DH
LHP Daniel Norris (1-1, 3.52)
MARINERS (11-11)
1 Brock Hebert 2B
2 Martin Peguero 3B
3 Reggie Lawson LF
4 Dario Pizzano RF
5 Tyler Marlette C
6 Jordy Lara 1B
7 Phillips Castillo DH
7 Phillips Castillo DH
8 Richard Palase CF
9 Bryan Brito SS
LHP Wander Marte (1-0, 1.20)
BROADCAST INFO: Listen live right here for Blue Jays pregame at 6:50. The games are also carried on local radio on WKEZ 1240 AM The Rooster Classic Country
WEATHER: 75 and rainy.
UMPIRES: PLATE Morgan Day FIELD Travis Godec
ABOUT LAST NIGHT...: Rod Serling would have a hard time believing it. For the fourth time in 12 days, the Bluefield Blue Jays lost a game in which they were one strike away from victory. The latest stunning loss came on Felipe Burin’s two-run pinch-hit bloop single to center field that gave the Pulaski Mariners a 5-4 ten-inning win at Calfee Park. The hit was nearly identical to the one by Burlington’s Patrick Leonard on Sunday that handed the Jays a 6-5 road loss. Three of Bluefield’s last four games have ended in walk-off defeats, all of them after the Jays were one pitch from winning. The Blue Jays battled back from 3-1 down in the eighth to force extra innings. With the bases loaded and one out in the tenth inning, Santiago Nessy lifted a fly ball to center field that was deep enough to plate Matt Dean and put the Jays ahead 4-3. Righty Wil Browning, just arriving in Pulaski after a call-up from the Gulf Coast League, came in to get the final three outs. He walked Reggie Lawson on four pitches before a controversial play at second base ignited the rally. Dario Pizzano’s hard grounder up the middle was ticketed for center field, but Jorge Vega-Rosado made a spectacular dive to stop the ball. The second baseman then flipped the ball through his legs to the covering shortstop Christian Lopes for an apparent force out. Field umpire Morgan Day ruled that Lopes did not control the ball and both runners were safe. Two batters later, Jordy Lara was hit on a two-strike pitch to load the bases. Browning recovered to strike out Peguero and he had two strikes on the pinch-hitter Burin before the dying quail plated Pizzano and pinch-runner Phillips Castillo to win it.
VS. THE MARINERS: The Blue Jays and Mariners opened the month of July with a rain-shortened two-game split at Bowen Field. The Mariners were down to their final strike in the July 1 contest trailing 3-2, but Brock Hebert and Martin Peguero stroked RBI singles off Colby Broussard to give the M’s the shocking win. The Jays responded the next night with a thrilling 2-1 victory. Jorge Vega-Rosado and Seth Conner had RBI singles, but it was the stellar pitching of Jeremy Gabryszwski (4 IP, 0 R, 3 H), Roberto Osuna (3 IP, 1 R, 3 H) and Julio Carmona (six-out save) that won the day. The July 3 rubber game was rained out and will be made up as part of a doubleheader when the M’s come back to Bowen Field on August 20. Bluefield won the 2011 season series against the Mariners 6-3, including wins in the final four head-to-head contests. Pulaski won two of three at home from July 21-23, taking the rubber game on Bryan Brito’s walk-off single in the tenth. From August 12-14, the Jays evened the season set by winning another road series. The final three games were at Bowen Field from August 19-21, with the Jays taking all of them by a combined score of 27-11.
- TONIGHT’S PITCHING PROBABLES -
LHP DANIEL NORRIS: One of the most highly-touted prospects in the Toronto farm system is back on the mound after a shortened start on Monday. Lefty Daniel Norris held a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning in Burlington and gave up singles to the first two hitters before a storm hit and suspended the game. His opponent batting average of .151 would be the second-best mark in the league if he were not five outs short of the innings qualifier. The 2011 second-round pick was rated by Baseball America as the fourth-best prospect in the Jays’ entire organization. In 2011 BA ranked him second among high-school prospects and 91st overall. The former Clemson signee struck out 123 batters in 68 innings as a senior at Science Hill HS in his native Johnson City, TN.
LHP WANDER MARTE: Southpaw Wander Marte gets the ball for Pulaski tonight and will face the Jays for the second time this season. On July 2 in Bluefield, he held the Jays to one run on four hits in five innings, striking out nine without issuing a walk. He dealt five scoreless innings and picked up the win against Kingsport on Saturday. The Santo Domingo native was signed by Seattle on November 3, 2009 and spent the last two seasons in the Dominican Summer League, posting a 1.53 ERA and 11.8 K/9 ratio in 58.2 innings.
DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN: Thursday’s loss was the third in six four games and the fourth in 12 days that the Jays lost a game in which they had the lead with two outs and two strikes in the final inning. The Jays were also a strike away from a win on July 1 at home against Pulaski before the Mariners rallied off Colby Broussard to win in shocking fashion. Bluefield suffered back-to-back walk-off defeats in Burlington on Saturday and Sunday.
DON’T THINK TWICE, IT’S AL-DWIGHT: Center fielder Dwight Smith Jr. has been heating up lately for the Blue Jays. The 2011 supplemental first-round pick is 7-for-12 in his last three games with a homer, three doubles, two RBIs and three runs scored. He was the hitting star for Bluefield last night with his first career three-hit game. His two doubles keyed the game-tying rally in the eighth inning and the one in the tenth that gave the Jays a lead. With only seven strikeouts in 76 plate appearances, he is the fourth-toughest hitter to strike out in the Appy League.
ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END: Art Charles went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts on Thursday, snapping his on-base streak at 20 games. It is the first time this season that the first baseman did not reach base. The streak will eventually go in as a 21-gamer. He walked during Monday’s suspended game and that will go into the record retroactively when the game is resumed next month. Art’s on-base streak dating back to last season was at up to 28. The day before he began that streak on August 23, 2011, he had just had a 15-gamer snapped, so the Bakersfield native had reached in 43 of his last 44 games before last night.
ANOTHER STREAK ENDS: Art Charles is the only player in the Appy League to start every one of his team’s games in 2012. That streak will come to an end tonight as he will get the day off. He and Chris Hawkins were the only players in the league to play all 68 games in 2011.
Bluefield Blue Jays Game Notes 7-13
Check out the @BluefieldJays Twitter page for mid-game updates
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