Offense Goes Quiet As 51s Reach Fresno

Las Vegas 51s @ Fresno Grizzlies

April 15, 2016

Andrew Barbosa @ Brad Peacock

Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Las Vegas	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0		1	3	0
Fresno	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	X		2	10	2

W: Chapman (1-0, 2.70 ERA); L: Alvarez (0-1, 13.50 ERA); S: Hoyt (2)

MiLB.com Boxscore

Nice seeing Gavin with the alien on his helmet, but a Mets logo will be nicer!

Josh Smoker is letting his beard grow out

The Highlights:

Pitchers

Andrew Barbosa (1.80 ERA) – 5 IP, 7 H, R, 6 K, HR, 84 Pitches (54 Strikes), 2 GO: 2 FO

Josh Smoker (0.00 ERA) – 1 IP, H, 1 GO: 1 FO, 1 IR – 0 S

Erik Goeddel (3.86 ERA) – 1.1 IP, H, 2 K, 1 FO

Dario Alvarez (L, 1-0, 13.50 ERA) – 0.2 IP, H, R, 2 K, HR

Batters

LF – Roger Bernadina – 2-3, BB, SO, CS

SS – Gavin Cecchini – 1-3, R, BB

Recapish

            The Las Vegas 51s first road trip of 2016 got off to a slow Friday night in Fresno, as the offense could only muster up 3 hits and they took a 2-1 loss to the Grizzlies. Spot starter Andrew Barbosa did a great job in his AAA debut, with a solo blast from Danny Worth the only real blemish on his final line. Worth’s blast would give the Grizzlies a 1-0 lead in the 6^th, but Las Vegas got that run right back in the 7^th. The tie wouldn’t last long though, as A.J. Reed launched a solo homerun of his own that put Fresno back on top. Fresno closer James Hoyt came on for the 9^th and was throwing an 89 MPH slider while retiring the 51s in order.

            The 51s never got anything going Friday night, and barely even made hard contact. Long-time announcer Russ Langer said it was the weakest offensive performance he could remember from any 51s team, and that’s not hard to believe considering. Aside from the two bombs, the Grizzlies didn’t fare much better Friday night, so maybe it was something in the air. A.J. Reed was credited with a double in the 6^th, but given he hit the ball approximately a mile in the air, it was probably the luckiest double of his life – it fell in right in front of Travis Taijeron. Dario Alvarez’s struggles against Fresno continued when he allowed Reed to go deep in the 8^th. Wally Backman had made the switch to Alvarez specifically for the lefty matchups that were coming, but that wasn’t even the most frustrating part of that result for Wally. After the game, he said of Alvarez in that spot, “The slider’s his out pitch, and he threw a first-pitch fastball to a fastball hitter. It was left to a guy that swings almost 50% of the time at the first pitch, so it was just a bad pitch thrown, and that’s what beat us.” (Hat tip to Betsy Helfand of the Las Vegas Review Journal for the quote, she’s a great follow on twitter for 51s information - @betsyhelfand).

            I break this game down a little more below, so enjoy! This series continues Saturday night at 10:05 PM, with Gabriel Ynoa scheduled to take the hill in Fresno for the 51s.

Scoring Highlights

            Roger Bernadina singled to lead off the 7^th, but he’d be thrown out trying to steal 2B. Gavin Cecchini followed with a single of his own and eventually came around to score. Rene Rivera reached on a fielding error when Matt Duffy dropped the ball in LF, which allowed Cecchini to move to 3B. T.J. Rivera followed with a fly ball near the LF line that would bring home Cecchini for a sac fly.

Defensive Highlights

            The Gavin Cecchini watch continues! He handled a grounder cleanly in the 2^nd and a couple of pop ups.

Pitcher Coverage

Andrew Barbosa

Table 1 – Barbosa pitch stats by inning

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	Total
Total	16	14	15	12	17	10	84
Strikes	9	9	10	8	14	4	54
Swinging*	1	3	0	4	2	1	11

*13.1% Swinging strike rate

First pitch strike to 15/21 batters faced (71%)

            Barbosa’s first AAA strikeout came to finish a clean 2^nd inning, when he got Jon Kemmer swinging.

            Nolan Fontana went down looking for the second out of the 3^rd inning, which also capped a great run by Barbosa: popout, popout, groundout to shortstop, strikeout, popout, strikeout.

            Barbosa would strike out A.J. Reed and Matt Duffy back-to-back to start a clean 5^th inning.

Erik Goeddel

            Erik Goeddel struck out two of the five batters he faced during his outing: Fontana swinging and Danny Worth swinging.

Josh Smoker

How to Safely Watch Mercury Transit the Sun on May 9 | @universetoday https://t.co/i4BnYqPbga pic.twitter.com/S3KZXlQlaD

— The SETI Institute (@SETIInstitute) April 15, 2016