Tigers Minor League Baseball Blog

Rick Porcello improved to 2-4 on the season in Lakeland’s 9-2 win over St. Lucie.  He gave up three hits and three walks with two strikeouts in six innings.

Cale Iorg singled, homered and drove in three runs in the win.  Santo De Leon went two for five with a run and an RBI.

Duane Below fell to 1-2 in the Flying Tigers 6-2 loss to Fort Myers.  The left hander gave up three runs on three hits and seven walks with four strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings.

Jeramy Laster went one for three with a double and a walk.  Cale Iorg tripled and scored a run.

Just about everyone was a hitting star as the Flying Tigers hitters poured it on in a 17-3 win over Sarasota but Cale Iorg and Scott Sizemore were notch above the rest.  Both hitters had a pair of hits including a homer and they drove in four.

Jonah Nickerson picked up the easy win with a solid outing.  He gave up two runs on five hits with four strikeouts in five innings.

Cale Iorg had a pair of singles and unfortunately, that was a third of the Flying Tigers offense in a 5-0 loss to Clearwater.  Jeffrey Kunkel had the only extra base hit of the game with a double.

Rick Porcello dropped to 1-2 on the season but his ERA is still a microscopic 0.64.  He gave up two runs (one earned) on four hits and two walks with five strikeouts in four innings.  If he keeps this up and as soon as the weather warms up, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing Porcello in Erie.

Michael Bertram singled home Cale Iorg in the top of the ninth inning and that was the difference in the Flying Tigers 5-4 win over Clearwater.  It capped off a solid game for both players who provided the bulk of the offense in this one.  Iorg went four for five with two runs while Bertram was three for five with two RBIs and a run.

Angel Castro picked up the win with 1 1/3 innings of shutout relief.  Freddy Dolsi picked up the save with two strikeouts in a shutout ninth inning.

It’s hard to blame this one on Rick Porcello.  He was crusing along but a pair of errors in the fourth inning resulted in four unearned runs and the end result was the young right hander took his first loss.  Still, he gave up just four hits without a walk and he struck out four in five innings in the 7-3 loss.

Louis Ott had two hits and he drove in two of Lakeland’s three runs.  Cale Iorg had a team high three hits including a double.

Kevin Goldstein recently put out his list of who he things the Tigers top eleven prospects are.  It’s an interesting list because like last year, you have two top players then a steep drop off.  Cameron Maybin checks in at number one for the second straight season and that’s not a surprise.  Yeah Maybin fell flat last year once he made it to the bigs but his minor league advancement was very solid.  He’s still considered a future star and the Tigers felt good enough about him to trade away Gorkys Hernandez, another top outfield prospect.

The Tigers 2007 first round draft pick, Rick Porcello, checks in at number two and like Maybin, he was given a five star tag.  Porcello signed too late to play in the Tiger’s system but he should start out with the White Caps.  I doubt if he’ll stay there long and I expect to see some pretty high strikeout numbers while he’s there.

After that, things thin out.  Casey Crosby, the Tigers fifth round pick in 2007, is the the third best prospect.  Like Porcello, Crosby fell further down because of signability issues and he was a big reason many though the Tigers had one of the best drafts this year. 

Cale Iorg and Brandon Hamilton (another first round, 2007 draft pick) round out the top five. Jeff Larish is sixth after a solid season at Double A last year and you also have a pair of pitchers in Yorman Bazardo and Eulogio De La Cruz who made the list despite having stints in the big leagues last year.

Lakeland finally picked up a win although it wasn’t without it’s troubles and they managed just a split in their doubleheader with Clearwater.  Game one was the win and it was a 5-4 game.  Cale Iorg went two for four with a double and three RBIs while Deik Scram doubled twice and scored two runs.

Josh Rainwater picked up the win with three solid innings of relief.  He gave up one run on four hits and three walks with one strikeout.