Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs

The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs brought home the worst perfomance of the week in the minors, posting a 1-5 record which included a double header sweep. Top pitching prospect Carlos Carrasco struggled yet again giving seven runs, all earned, on 11 hits over 4 plus innings. There were reports of an inflammation in Carrasco's pitching arm a few weeks ago. I think that Carrasco's struggles are related to that injury. The Iron Pigs are really struggling as a team this season so far. Not one player under the age of 30 has an ERA under 3.50.  Not one position player under the age of 30 had a batting average over .300.

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With Monday being an off day for the Phightins, I thought I would take a look at our up and comers. So here we go down on the farm.

Lehigh Valley (AAA): Kyle Kendrick got rocked by Toledo yesterday in a rare mid day game. He gave up 6 earned runs over five innings. He did manage to strikeout 4 and only walked one. The part that impresses me the most about Kyle Kendrick so far is his ERA. The six earned runs brought his ERA up to 3.75. I would say that is pretty respectable compared to what we saw from him the bigs last season. Hopefully this means he is turning it around. You can never have enough sinkerballers at the Bank. Right now Kendrick needs to focus making batters miss the ball. His WHIP and his groundball rate are both hovering right around 1.50. So to get back to the bigs with the Phils or anyone else, he will need to improve both of those.

Continue reading "Down on the farm. A look at the minors."