American Association Insider: Wednesday July 1 Takeaways

 Kevin Luckow

(not a member of IBWAA)

The American Association kicked off July action with a Canada Day matinee in Winnipeg and five night tilts. It's been a hot stretch weather wise across the league. Even in my neck of the woods, I passed up doing anything outside today opting for NHL Network coverage of Free Agent Frenzy. I hope your favorite team got what they needed today, I know mine did not. 

Kansas City 7 Winnipeg 3

A Luken Baker three run home run in the first inning set the tone for the Monarchs as they put a damper on Canada Day as they defeated the Goldeyes. Nick Martini had three hits from the lead off from the lead off spot for the Monarchs. Grant Gambrell went six innings allowing two runs to pick up his third win in as many starts.

Sioux City 5 Sioux Falls 2

For the second time in three starts, Josh Landry was dominant in picking up his third straight win. Landry went eight innings allowing a run on three hits. After dropping his first four decisions, Landry has now won his third straight start. Henry George had a solo home run in the first inning and drove in three runs to pace Sioux City. The teams combined for just 11 hits with Sioux City collecting six of them in the victory.

Cleburne 8 Lake Country 1

The Railroaders or should I say the Railrollers collected their eight consecutive victory as four Cleburne pitchers held the DockHounds to five hits and one run, A Joshua Mears solo shot, his 13th. Delino DeShields Jr. did most of the damage with a three run home run and a run scoring double as he drove in five runs for the night. To show how competitive the East Division has been, even with eight wins in a row, Cleburne still sits in fourth place, but are charging hard.

Kane County 8 Gary SouthShore 6

Left for dead down 6-0 in the fourth inning, the Cougars scored in each of the last five innings eventually taking the lead in a two run eighth inning. Claudio Finol went 3-5 with two doubles and two runs batted in. Sam Dexter homered and drove in two as part of a 2-4 night. The Cougars bullpen as they so often do, shut down the RailCats in the final three innings allowing three hits and striking out three to lock down the victory.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Andreachi


Lincoln 5 Fargo-Moorhead 3

The RedHawks took a 3-2 lead in part to a Jose Sermo home run, his 14th of the season in the fifth inning. But it was all Saltdogs from there as they countered with two in the fifth and another in the sixth. Nick Shumpert had two solo home runs for the Saltdogs. The Saltdogs bullpen was solid once again not allowing a run in four innings. 

Milwaukee 6 Chicago 2

It was a Diaz vs. Diaz matchup at Impact Field as Juan Diaz threw six innings and allowed a single run to best the Dog's Andre Diaz. The Milkmen had three solo home runs off the bats of Chase Waddell, Delvin Perez and Yordes Valdes. Valdes had three hits out of the lead off spot for the Milkmen. Ethan Wilder homered and had three hits for Chicago. Wilder did not make the All Star Game but will likely be one of the first call for a replacement as the Dogs shortstop is now hitting .329. Giovanni DiGiacomo's 19 game hitting streak came to an end with a 0-4 night. 




















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

American Association SUNDAY Insider: Speaking in terms of "what if?"

Image
 Kevin Luckow (non member of IBWAA) What was once a rumor passed between league colleagues, has now been reported by media. The story being the potential move of the Kane County Cougars and Cleburne Railroaders to the Frontier League, soon to be renamed National Association of Professional Baseball. The move would be made for the 2027 season. A real blow to an American Association that has ambitions of expansion.  To get a real feel for what this would mean to AAPB, let's go all the way back to 2006. In the Fall of 2005, the St. Paul Saints, Sioux Falls Canaries, Sioux City Explorers and Lincoln Saltdogs all departed the Northern League. Philosophical differences between ownerships being cited as a major reason for the defection. But a four team league was not going to cut it. Enter the St. Joe Blacksnakes as a stopgap, a team that likely would not have long term stability but filled an immediate need.  Enter Texas. The Texas-Louisiana League was winding down. So the five...
Read more

American Association SUNDAY Insider: The underpaid, overworked liaisons of the American Association

Kevin Luckow (non member of IBWAA)  The idea of this Insider came to my head on Thursday night as I was watching a game in Cleburne. It was the 750th American Association broadcast for voice of the Railroaders, Brad Allred. The Railroaders produced a video for Allred with numerous colleagues from the past, former players and current players paying tribute to Allred.  It got me to thinking just how important the play by play men are to the teams which they are employed. Teams in the AAPB do not have local newspapers following the teams on the road. Often times it is the play by play guys that may put a game story on their team website that the local newspaper picks up to condense into a tiny part of the newspaper. Not to discount the media relations director who also do gamers with no byline given if the newspaper picks it up.  For myself this goes all the way back to the Northern League. Although St. Paul had great coverage from Mike Augustin (mentioned a few weeks ago in...
Read more

American Association SUNDAY Insider: American Associaiton returning to Minnesota

Image
 Kevin Luckow (non member of IBWAA) It's been funny. I've seen stories, thoughts and opinions all around about the announcement of an American Association team in Blaine. They are nice recaps, crosses the t's and dots the i's. But all from an outsider perspective. There's a phrase I like to use when people refer to me as knowledgeable about the going ons in Independent Baseball. It's not that I'm smart, it just means I've been around a long time. For this story I think we have to go back to September of 2020. The St. Paul Saints were playing their final game of the Covid season against the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks. It was in front of a relatively sparse crowd. A weeknight in mid to late September and there was nothing at stake outside of who was going to win the American Association batting title. Drew Ward would end up edging Correlle Prime after Prime was robbed of a base hit late in the game. After the game I talked to Jeff Bittiger who was traveling w...
Read more