The Hog Blog

TRACY OUT OF DERBY...

Only two of the eight players participating in tonight's Triple-A Home Run derby in Portland hit more home runs than the IronPigs Andy Tracy.

But Tracy didn't advance to the second round.

Tracy was one of three players who hit five home runs in the contest, topped only by Chad Huffman of the hometown Beavers (7) and local high schooler Kevin Taylor, who hit eight using an aluminum bat.

But the tiebreaker to advance to the second round was the most home runs hit so far in the season, which put Scranton's Shelley Duncan (21) and Salt Lake's Terry Evans (17) in the second round.

Tracy has 15 so far for the IronPigs, second to Duncan in the International League.

PHILLIES STARTERS MAKING THEIR CASE FOR KEEPING THE STATUS QUO ...

While the Phillies kicked the tires on Pedro Martinez and tried to get over the sticker shock on Roy Halladay, their starting rotation quietly compiled a 3.08 ERA on the just concluded 10-game home stand, a number inflated by two outings by the rotation's mainstays in which they gave up 11 earned runs in 11 innings.

Asked if maybe the he and his fellow starters are trying to send a message to the front office -- 'Look, we're fine as is' -- ex-IronPig J.A. Happ hesitated before answering.

"Ah, I think so. I think -- I'm choosing my words carefully, I guess -- I think we're fine. Like you've said, we've turned the rotation over several times and we've all had quality outings," Happ said Sunday afternoon after allowing four hits and a run in seven innings in a win over Pittsburgh. "There's nothing said about it to where ...

"I think we're taking it a little bit personal," he said finally, "and we're trying to out there and do the best job we can. And it's been going good for us."

Not too long ago Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said bolstering the pitching staff, especially the rotation, was a main priority.

"Pitching was a concern; Charlie's made that known," shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. "I guess they listened and said we can handle it."

"There's enough being being said about it -- not that you take things so personally anyways, but there's a little motivation that can go into it," Happ said. "And I think the guys are thwoing real well."

The Phillies starting pitching situation is very similar to that of a year ago.

"We had a lot of trouble with our pitching all the way up to the end of August," Manuel said, "but once we did, that was the best I've ever seen our pitching for about five or six weeks."

All Martinez would cost the Phillies would be several wheelbarrows full of cash. To pry Halladay away from Toronto would require a major package of prospects, with perhaps Happ leading the way.

The way Happ's been pitching this year, especially since being put in the rotation (where he belonged since Opening Day, by the way), that idea is starting to generate major controversy on talk shows and in newspaper columns.

Happ is 6-0 with a 2.90 ERA in 22 apperances his year, and has seven quality starts in 10 outings since joining the rotation. His name has been linked to nearly every trade rumor and scenario since the Phillies seemingly endless search for pitching help began.

"You can try to block that stuff out, and I'm going to tell you that I try. But obviously it goes through your head," Happ said. "I love being here, I love this team, and I feel like I fit in good here. But I'm also just trying to prove that I'm a big-league pitcher."

He doesn't have to convince his manager of that, and if one reads between the lines, Happ most likely would've been in the rotation from Day One if Manuel had his way.

"I always considered that as Park's role, really," Manuel said when the subject of Chan Ho Park's effectiveness out of the bullpen came up. "I've had a couple of conversations with Park about that."

As for Happ ...

"He takes us to places in the game we want to be," Manuel said. "He's in our rotation and he's earned a chance to keep going in our rotation. I can tell you more about that the more he pitches."

"It could havve gone the other way and who knows where I'd be right now," Happ said. "I'm where I want to be and for the most part I'm throwing the ball pretty well. It's rewarding, knowing that if you keep your head down and keep working, opportunities come. Then you just have to take advantage of them."

Don't expect the starter's performance on the home stand to bring Ruben Amaro's quest for starting pitching to a halt. And naturally, Manuel is all for any move that makes his team stronger and improves its odds of repeating as World Champions.

"We'd like to have the best team we can possibly have," Manuel said. "I'm sure everybody would like to have that. But at the same time, we'll play with what we have."

Asked to evaluate how that team has played in the first half, Manuel used the word "inconsistent." But he said it's right where he thinks it should be -- atop the division.

"We're definitely capable of winning our division; actually, we control our destiny, and I think that we should win our division," Manuel said candidly. "But at the same time we can play better. We've been playing pretty good, especially on this homestand as far as getting our game together, what I call consistent baseball.

"Every team is going to have streaks where they're going good, but also you're going to ahve down times," he added. "We had kind of a bad streak but our record on the road helped us get through it and nwe we came back home and had a good homestand. I still think we can play more consistent baseball."

ROLLIN' OUT THE WELCOME MAT...

C'mon, you didn't really expect to hear "New York, New York" after those two Scranton "home" games at Coca-Cola Park last week, did you?

The IronPigs front office did a lot to try to make their up-state neighbors comfortable, but let's be real here -- these were Yankee home games in name only.

Not the case Saturday afternoon in Syracuse, where Scranton played another "home" game against Buffalo. Chiefs management went all-out to make Yankee players and fans who made the trip up I-81 welcome -- even to the extent of getting it rain a few hours in the afternoon, delaying the start of the game for 75 minutes.

Of course the Chiefs, as explained in the linked story in the Syracuse Post-Standard, have an ulterior motive.

Their player development agreement with the Washington Nationals expires following the 2010 season, the same time the Yankees agreement with Syracuse runs out. The Chiefs, who put a full-court press on the Mets last winter before losing out Buffalo and settling for Washington, would love to lure the Yankees to upstate New York if the stadium situation in Scranton doesn't get resolved to their satisfaction. Syracuse does have a history with the Yankees -- it was their International League affiliate until moving to Columbus early in the Steinbrenner era.

The link to the Post-Standard story...

http://blog.syracuse.com/chiefs/2009/07/chiefs_roll_out_the_welcome_ma.html

In the meantime, the estimates are in on the price-tag for the work needed to alleviate the problem at PNC Field.

A consultant said it will take between $650,000 and $750,000 to install a new drainage system and playing surface, with the work to be done this fall if approved.

For more on this story see the Scranton Times...

http://www.scrantontimes.com/news/tab_to_replace_sod_drainage_system_at_pnc_field_comes_in_between_650_000_and_750_000

It's going to be a very interesting off-season indeed in Northeast Pennsylvania.

HELLO, JASON...

My first sojourn to Citizens Bank Park today, filling in for beat writer Mandy Housenick, and it turned out to be excelent timing...

Just came up from the Pittsburgh clubhouse where I chatted a few minutes with ex-IronPigs catcher Jason Jaramillo. Jaramillo was once the Phillies catcher of the future until being subplanted by Lou Marson.

Fortunately for Jaramillo, he had some a friend who had just become an important part of the Pittsburgh heirarchy -- John Russell, his manager in 2007 in Ottawa who was named the Pirates manager after that season. The Pirates traded their back-up catcher, Ronny Paulino, for Jaramillo last winter, and Jaramillo made the Opening Day roster as Ryan Doumit's back-up.

Two weeks into the season, Doumit went down with a broken right wrist and the Pirates went with a platoon of Jaramillo and Robinson Diaz. Jaramillo, who had just three at-bats in 12 games before Doumit's injury, played 44 games while Doumit recovered, hitting .255 with 3 homers and 19 RBIs. His average was at .288 a month ago before a current 6-for-38 slide, and his last start was July 7 at Houston.

"I was happy to get the chance to play as much as I did," Jaramillo said Sunday. "I was always confident I could play on this level."

Doumit returned for the series opener here on Friday and has played every game since.

"The playing time [Jaramillo] got helped mature him even more," Russell told the Pittsburgh media about Jaramillo.

Jaramillo, the Phillies second-round pick in 2004, said he realized early last season that he would likely be moving on in the off-season. "It was tough to play through that," he admitted. Still, he earned a spot on the International League team for the Triple-A All-Star game in Louisville and hit .266 with 8 homers and 39 RBIs in 115 games for the IronPigs.

"I understand it's a business. And things work out for a reason," Jaramillo said, also pointing out that Don Long, who was the Phillies minor league hitting coordinator during Jaramillo's time with the organization, and Gary Varsho, a former Phillies coach during his first three seasons in the organization, are on Russell's coaching staff.

YOU HAVE WHO HITTING LEADOFF...???

When Raul Ibanez appeared with the IronPigs Tuesday, IronPigs manager Dave Huppert put Mike Cervenak in the two-spot in the batting order.

It was the first time in at least six years that Cervenak hit in that spot, and he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout.

Surprisingly, however, Cervenak -- who's not exactly Ricky Henderson on the basepaths -- was once a leadoff hitter.

In 2001, his first full season with a major league organization, Cervenak played for the Norwich Navigators, the Yankees Double-A affiliate in the Eastern League. The Navigators featured Marcus Thomas, who would hit 31 home runs that year; Johnny Rodriguez, who had 22; one-time mega-prospect Juan Rivera, who finished with 14; and Oriol Leon, who hit 15 home runs.

So ex-Yankee manager Stump Merrill put Cervenak, who hit .329 in 155 at-bats for Single-A Greensboro the previous season, in the leadoff spot.

"We had a bunch of big boppers and they wanted them in the middle of the line-up," said Cervenak, who joined the Yankee organization the previous season after starting his career in the independent Frontier League.

Cervenak got 228 of his 463 at-bats that season hitting leadoff, batting .268 in that spot and .274 overall. But he wasn't exactly the classic table-setter -- he stole just two bases in six attempts that season, and hit one triple.

So far in his 11-year career Cervenak has stolen 39 bases in 57 attempts, and has hit 24 triples in 4,569 minor-league at-bats.

"If we were down by a run in the ninth and I got a hit leading off they’d pinch run, and people were like, 'What’s going on here?' " Cervenak said, remembering that season.

ANOTHER SOLID START FOR KENDRICK...

I'm not about to say that the answer to the Phillies starting rotation problems pitched tonight for the IronPigs.

But if the Phillies don't have room for Kyle Kendrick, I'm guessing there's some major league clubs out there that do.

The 24-year-old continued his run of solid outings Friday against the Yankees. Despite not being as crisp as he was in his last two outings, when he had a complete-game loss to Norfolk and then threw eight shutout innings at Syracuse, he took a three-hit shutout into the seventh -- extending his scoreless innings streak to 15. Overall he allowed three runs and five hits, striking out four and walking two.

"I thought he was outstanding," IronPigs manager Dave Huppert said. "He pitched in well, threw some good off-speed pitches, kept them of-stride, had a good sinker. His strikeouts were away from the right-handers and away from the left-handers, and that's what we want him to do."

What Huppert has been impressed with the most over Kendrick's recent starts is his tendency to get better and stronger as the games go on, and go deeper into the games.

Tonight he walked one and gave up a hit in the first inning, and needed a nice play by Terry Tiffee behind the third-base bag that turned a probable run-scoring double by Shelly Duncan into a force at second to help him get out of the inning. But then he faced just 17 batters over the next five innigs, stranding a runner at second with two outs in the second and a runner at third with two outs in the sixth.

Friday was the ninth time in his last 10 starts that Kendrick has gone six or more innings (and the 10th was that outing in Norfolk on June 22 when he faced just two batters before an hour-long rain delay. He had hit six innings just twice in his first eight starts.

This was the fifth time in those 10 games he's taken a shutout into at least the sixth inning, and his ERA in those 10 outings is now 3.07. His overall ERA for the season is 3.51.

"If you remember early he was having a tough time getting through the fifth inning," Huppert said. "Now he's starting to command it longer and getting his breaking stuff over to keep them off his sinker so he's really made a big improvement. He's getting a lot deeper into games.

"He's really made good progress."

Whether that's enough to get him back in the Phillies rotation remains to be seen. But what he's shown is that he deserves the opportunity to wear someone's major league uniform again.

I mean, if someone's willing to put one on Pedro Martinez, there's no reason why they can't put one on Kyle Kendrick.

BUTTO TO READING...FOR NOW

The approaching all-star break tends to cause some shuffling in minor league organizations.

With two Reading pitchers, Kyle Drabek and Yohan Flande, selected to play in Sunday's Future Game, the Phillies send Francisco Butto from the IronPigs to the R-Phils to help eat up some innings for the next few days.

Flande is Reading's scheduled starter for tonight's game at Harrisburg but will likely only pitch a few innings before heading to St. Louis. Reading will need a starter to fill in for Drabek on Saturday.

Also, those fans expecting to see John Mayberry Jr. back in an IronPigs uniform now that Raul Ibanez is back on the Phillies roster are disappointed, obviously.

In case you haven't heard, the Phillies designated Chris Coste for assignment and Houston quickly snapped up the popular catcher and utility player.

That means Mayberry will remain on the Phillies roster, at least for the immediate future.

Coste became expendable and most likely saw his eventual exit from Philadelphia when the Phillies signed veteran catcher Paul Bako May 18 and then added him to the roster on June 9. Coste became a folk hero for Phillies fans in 2006 when he reached the major league after an 11-year minor league career, the bulk of them spent in independent leagues, and hit .328 with seven homers in 65 games. This year he was hitting .245 with two homers and eight RBIs in 45 games, and he's a career .282 hiter with 23 homers in 288 games over the last four seasons.

BIG TURNOUT ON SHORT NOTICE...

A little over 24 hours from the time they were "asked" by International League president Randy Mobley to host two games with Scranton due to the unplayable field conditions at PNC Field, the IronPigs watched some 5,000 fans filter through the gates of Coca-Cola Park for Thursday's game with Scranton.

The offical attendance was announced at 6.091, which actually represents the 11th-largest crowd for Scranton (since the Yankees were the official home team the total gets credited to their total). That fingure includes roughly 2,200 complimentary tickets which where credited to the accounts of IronPigs full-season ticket holders on all levels (suites, club seats and in the lower bowl) as, in general manager Kurt Landes' words, a "thank you" for their overwhelming support.

It also includes the nearly 300 fans who exchanged the Scranton tickets they held for scheduled games for this game.

Still, Landes said, that means nearly 3,600 people came to the park during the day to either purchase tickets for the game -- Landes said roughly 1,200 tickets were sold between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. -- or, if they held IronPigs mini-season ticket plans, came to pick up their complimentary tickets based on their plans.

(Unlike the full-season plan holders, who automatically got a ticket for both games, mini-plan holders could get complimentary tickets for either both games or one or the other, based on their plans. But mini-plan holders had to physically come to the park to take advantage of the offer).

"There are teams that would love this type of crowd if they had eight months to plan for it," Landes said. "To have this turnout when you have 24 hours, it's extraordinary."

A large line greeted ticket personnel when they opened the box office at 9 a.m., and Landes said that line wrapped its way around the right field perimeter of the stadium through mid-afternoon. After that, he said, a steady stream of customers filtered through until roughly two hours before game time.

Landes said roughly two dozen members of the Scranton front office staff made the trip to help fill in for IronPigs personnel who were unable to work on short notice. Their roles ranged from ushers to concession workers to regular game-day positions.

He also speculated that the crowd for Friday's game could top this one. He anticipates more fans coming down from Scranton to exchange their tickets since it is a weekend game, and with an additional 24 hours to get the word out that the game is being played believes there will be a larger walk-up crowd.

For the record, the Yankees have drawn three crowds of greater than 8,000 this year at PNC Field, topped by a crowd of 9,325 for a June 5 game with Syracuse. The others are 9,096 on June 19 against Indianapolis, and 8,266 on Opening Night against Rochester on April 17.

SIGHTSEEING IN SCRANTON...

Shifting Thursday's game form PNC Field to Coca-Cola Park saved Raul Ibanez about 2 1/2 hours driving time round trip on his rehab appearance from Philadelphia.

But he said after the game that he wouldn't have minded making the trip to coal country.

"I kind of heard a little bit what’s going on up there [with PNC Field's playing surface], and I’m glad that I didn’t have to drive [that far], but at the same time I wanted to visit Scranton because my favorite show’s “The Office,” and you know it’s based out of Scranton," he said, drawing laughter from the media members. "So I kind of wanted to see Scranton; I was looking forward to seeing Scranton, too. This worked out great here tonight but I wanted to maybe drive by some of the places they say they go to, you know, Poor Richard’s [Pub] and whatever, maybe drive by and see them. I also heard that they have great chicken wings up there."

Ibanez seemed to genuinely enjoy his time at both Reading and Allentown this week, and was impressed with the facilities, fan support and organizations at both places.

"It was a great experience," he said of the final stages of his comeback from a strained left groin. "The Reading club, I think they do a great job, and it’s a first-class place. Here the same way, totally first class. The facilities here are phenomenal. It’s a good experience, you get to see a lot of the guys you know and friends and stuff like that, and it also helps you appreciate the major leagues, how great we have it. So I’m glad I was able to do it."

Ibanez raved about Coca-Cola Park after his first appearance here Tuesday.

"I was really impressed with the facility," Ibanez said. "I had no idea it was this nice. It's a beautiful place. The batting cages and clubhouse are top-notch; it's probably the nicest Triple-A park I've ever played at."

SMALL CROWD...

Given the length of the ticket lines throughout the day at Coca-Cola Park, the crowd for Thursday night's game with Scranton, the first of the two "bonus" games shifted to Allentown because of poor field conditions at PNC Field, looks to be a bit small.

I'm going to guess that there's maybe between 3,000 and 4,000 people here at game time. I thought the opportunity to see a rehabbing Raul Ibanez would bring a sizable crowd to the park tonight but it appears I was wrong.

I guess this shows just how important group sales are to a franchise. The picnic patio is empty, as are the two party porches on the club level. Fans are being allowed to sit in the outdoor seats of the dugout suites but access to the suites themselves is not available.

No word on how many people who had tickets for the game in Scranton exchanged them for tickets for tonight's game...I'm going to try to get that from GM Kurt Landes a bit later.

There is a Yankee presence in the park...the team's mascot, Champ, made the trip down the turnpike, and Scranton front office personnel are also helping out with game operations.