Verrett at his Best, Velasquez Holds on in the 9th

Reno Aces @ Las Vegas 51s

June 14, 2015

Justin Marks @ Logan Verrett

Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Reno	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	3		7	11	1
Las Vegas	0	4	0	0	2	0	0	2	X		8	9	0

W: Verrett (2-0, 3.00 ERA); L: Marks (3-6, 6.08 ERA); Save: Velasquez (3, 5.54 ERA)

MiLB.com Boxscore

The Highlights:

Pitchers

Logan Verrett – 7.2 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 5 SO, HBP, 85 Pitches (57 Strikes), 11 GO: 5 FO, (1-2, SAC)

Cody Satterwhite (5.76 ERA) – 0.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, HR, 1 GO, 1 IR – 1 S

John Church (3.97 ERA) – 0 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 2 BB, HR

Jon Velasquez – 1 IP, H, SO, 3 IR – 2 S

Batters

Brooks Conrad – 1-4, R, 2B (7), 2 SO

Alex Castellanos – 3-4, 2 R, 2 2B (19), RBI (39), SB (4)

Travis Taijeron – 1-2, R, HR (11), 3 RBI (31), BB, SF

Dan Rohlfing – 3-4, R, HR (2), 3 RBI (14), SO

Recap

            The 51s finished their sweep of the Reno Aces behind one of the best PCL performances Logan Verrett has thrown, and then just enough offense to hold off a near collapse from the pen. Verrett was great as he continues to be stretched out as a starter, taking his shutout into the 8^th, with only the 4 hits and a HBP through 7 IP. The Aces bats exploded as soon as the pen came in, apparently pretty excited to be facing anyone other than Verrett. Satterwhite would allow a single and 3R-HR before getting the final out of the 8^th, and then John Church couldn’t even get an out in the 9^th, but then Jon Velasquez came in and stopped the madness.

            Verrett seemed very much in control throughout, but he still walked a fine line, as the first 4 hits off of him were doubles. As you can see in the table below, he only reached as high as 13 pitches in one inning, and he had 5 swinging strike that frame, so it wasn’t even a bad inning. Encouraging start from Verrett, who has put up a much better PCL ERA so far this year, but had poor K and BB rates coming in.

            As you can tell from the highlights section, the 51s offense was led by a few big performances at the dish, but several guys combined to make this game look like a laugher early. Castellanos led off the 2^nd inning rally with a double, and then came around to score on a throwing error from the Reno third baseman. Rohlfing followed with his second blast of the year, a long 3R shot to left-center field. In the 5^th, Conrad and Castellanos hit back-to-back doubles for a run, and then Castellanos came home on a sac fly from Taijeron. Taijeron’s bat provided the key insurance runs in the 8^th, as he launched a long homerun to RF to extend the lead to 8-4.

            With an 8-4 lead, Wally Backman went to the usually reliable John Church to start the 9^th, but the Aces went: HR, 2B, BB, BB against Church before a change was made. Velasquez gladly traded an inherited runner to score for the first out when he came into the bases loaded situation, and then quickly got a second out. With two outs, Danny Dorn pulled the first pitch he saw into RF to make it a one run game with Peter O’Brien (.942 OPS) due up. Velasquez started O’Brien with a pitch in the dirt that he did not chase at, but then threw 3 straight strikes, with O’Brien swinging through the last two, for a game-ending strikeout.

            Las Vegas welcomes Salt Lake into town Monday night, with Darin Gorski scheduled to pitch at 10 PM.

Table 1 - Verrett pitch count stats

Stats	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Total
Count	12	9	12	11	12	13	9	7	85
Strikes	9	6	7	6	6	11	6	6	57
Swinging	1	2	0	1	0	5	0	0	9

Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930: http://t.co/7eZPwSZSt3 pic.twitter.com/K5FGh3U5TQ

— Science News (@ScienceNews) June 14, 2015