Sunday, May 8, 2016

Recapping the Greensboro Series

This is a series I had hoped to see. Greensboro is just over three hours away, and while I went to them regularly between late in the 2006 season to early in the 2008 season I have not seen the Grasshoppers at home since I graduated from nearby High Point University. The stadium has seen three names due to its ties with banks which change or merge all the time. The stadium was when I first saw it First Horizon Park, but just before I graduated from HPU it became NewBridge Bank Park (a far worse name IMO) after First Horizon went back to being a western bank. And this year NewBridge Bank got bought by Yadkin Bank, meaning another name change. The lesson: don't trust banks. Greensboro briefly led the SAL in attendance, but has generally been second to Lakewood in attendance since opening the stadium in 2005. But Greensboro has been an attendance leader for a while, as World War Memorial Stadium often averaged 3K fans per game which was pretty good for the classic era of Minor League Baseball. Of course, there is a solid population base better than what most of the league has. While many cities in the SAL are actually smaller than Columbia, Greensboro is a much bigger city. That said, the Grasshoppers don't exactly own the entire Triad region as Winston-Salem is a level up in the Carolina League 25 miles to the west with Burlington about the same distance to the east has a Rookie-level Appalachian League team in the summer months as well.

But I mostly stayed put locally in SC as I would be traveling on the weekend to Ohio for the funeral of my uncle's wife. Technically that means she was my aunt, but this was my uncle's second wife whom he married when I was already 25 and they only lived together a few years. This was a tragic loss for my uncle and I was there to support him, even though I didn't personally know the deceased that well in her lifetime. So that would mean no visits to Greensboro, which with the weather iffy wasn't so bad anyway.

This also took away my blogging time, hence why I am combining three games into one recap. I'll do the same with other series upcoming as well, with new format changes to the recaps coming.

Wednesday (Game 26): The Fireflies scored early and then late to win this one 8-3. What more can you say about David Thompson? He drives in runs better than any other pro baseball player. Given his age as a college product, you would think he has to be headed to Port St. Lucie in the near future. Thompson in this game went 4 for 5, coming only a triple short of the cycle (if only it was at home, then he would've gotten that triple for sure!) with 4 RBIs. But everybody hit generally pretty well, as Dash Winningham went 4 for 5 with 2 RBIs as well. If Dash can find his power, his prospects will go up as well. All nine guys reached base with only J.C. Rodriguez and Vinny Siena not getting hits. Pitching-wise P.J. Conlon struggled early but settled down and stayed in control to improve to 4-0 with a 1.50 ERA, making him by far the most reliable starter right now. Christian Montgomery seems to coming along in the bullpen after starting this season rough, and Nicco Blank pitched some more in a low pressure situation.

Thursday, but actually Friday (Game 27): What can you say about this one? Not much good in a 5-2 loss. This game was rained out on Thursday and played around dinner time Friday. The most positive thing you can say is that Thompson went 2 for 3 with yet another RBI. Unfortunately, that accounted for the entire Firefly hit total. Emmanuel Zabala and Ivan Wilson both walked a couple times and ran the bases well to get the Fireflies a couple runs early. But nobody who wasn't one of the top hitters in the ACC last year hit Brett Lilek or Ben Holmes. The Grasshoppers took out a shaky Lilek after 3 innings. By contrast, the Fireflies probably left Thomas McIlraith in too long. McIlraith pitched okay for five innings, only to have a semi-meltdown in the 6th that gave the Grasshoppers the win as the game was only 7 innings. Not only did McIlraith lose but no guys were able to get pitching time out of the bullpen either.

Late Friday (Game 28): Also a 7 inning game and also a poor hitting performance by the Fireflies. Wilson and Siena logged the only Firefly hits of the game.But a sloppy and wild inning by the Grasshoppers gave the Fireflies two runs in the 3rd as Thompson got a ground ball to bring home Vicente Lupo who had walked (who else would have driven in the run?). Thompson even reached on an error on the play and would steal a base, which gave him enough points to overtake Conlon as seen below in the race to be the greatest ever Firefly. A solid performance by the steadily improving Kevin Canelon gave the Fireflies a chance to win with a 2-0 lead after 5. Alex Palsha then entered and had an ugly save with a run in the 6th, but a save's a save as the Fireflies won 2-1.

So the Fireflies only had four hits in 14 innings on Friday, but did just what they had to in order to get a road series win. The Fireflies are doing okay, but will need to either get really hot the next few weeks or get a good second half in order to make the SAL playoffs. So let's close it out with the All-Time Firefly Player Standings. As you can see, it's starting to become clear that the two stars of this team are P.J. Conlon pitching and David Thompson hitting.




PlayerPositionTBRRBIBB/HBPSBCS0 for 1SOOutsKRERHBB/HBPWSLScore
David Thompson3B52233312207024000000000432
P.J. ConlonP00000000902355314400422
Kevin CanelonP00000000782899218201300
Vinny Siena2B4023825115724000000000297
Chase IngramP000000007230117238202271
Joe ShawP00000000632476216201249
Alex PalshaP00000000412376107121218
Tyler BashlorP0000000035152268020206
Ivan WilsonCF3615912326129000000000205
Seth DavisP00000000491375139111187
Dash Winningham1B3011141100608000000000180
J.C. RodriguezDH25121113416715000000000165
Thomas McIlraithP00000000781917142513102143
Jeff DiehlDH24101012105526000000000130
Tyler BadamoP0000000074131513286102121
Johnny MagliozziP0000000030877122121113
Joe TuschakLF277117015716000000000111
Tucker TharpRF19852212913000000000110
Christian MontgomeryP00000000381711613800092
Nicco BlankP00000000228223500084
Craig MissigmanP00000000401799131000066
Kevin KaczmarskiRF14103702411200000000052
Vicente LupoLF1265601292000000000050
Milton RamosSS16611601581800000000044
Emmanuel ZabalaLF4302106200000000037
Jose GarciaC63140019900000000015
Natanael RamosC41120010300000000013
Tyler MooreC1264401471000000000013
Witt HaggardP00000000423333002-58
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