Saturday, July 26, 2008

Series Report: Reno @ Chico (July 25-27, 2008)

I guess I spoke too soon. With a sweep of Long Beach and a trip to play league worst Chico, I though they were primed to shoot up the standings. Unfortunately, Chico had other ideas and swept the Sox in a four game series.

Game One: The Sox decided to go with the new pitcher signed on July 23rd (Daniel Charffardet) who promptly got tagged for 9 hits and 8 runs in just 4 innings. His compadre for the July 23d signing day, Errol Simonitsch, was also unable to close the flood gates giving up 2 runs in his two innings of work. I didn't listen to the game and there no information in the game report from the Sox to indicate why position players Doug Sanders and Ryan Brown came in to pitch for the team but the good news is that they only allowed one run between the two of them across two innings.

Game Two: The Sox decided to give Nick Ginsberg his second start of the year and he responded with yet another poor outing. Gisnberg pitched just 2.1 innings allowing 5 runs on 4 hits and 5 walks. His season ERA has risen to 11.88 and in his 8.1 innings of work, he has allowed 12 runs, 12 hits, and 13 walks. Obviously, he is not the solution to the Sox pitching woes, at least not as a starter. The game settled down from there and actually was a very close game before Chico won in the bottom of the ninth off our closer Scott Schneider in a non-save situation.

Game Three: Steve Russell, one of our "legitimate" starters, pitched a gem before losing a heartbreaking pitchers duel 2-0. He pitched all six innings of the double header shortened game and allowed just two runs in the bottom of the second before settling down for the rest of the contest. Unfortunately, Trevor Caughley and his league leading 1.98 ERA held the Sox to just two hits in six innings before Todd Galetka, last year's save master, shut the door for good.

Game Four: The Sox went back to another newcomer and got similar results. Billy Simon made his first start for the Sox since being acquired on July 23rd. He played with St. George before being released where he went 4-4 in 17 games (4 as a starter) with a 11.67 ERA. Simon pitched just 1.2 innings and gave up 6 runs. Simonitsch, who pitched in game one, pitched the next 2.1 innings and gave up another 6 runs. He has pitched three times in the past 4 days and has been getting progressively worse. 1 run allowed on the 23rd, 2 runs allowed on the 25th, and 6 runs allowed yesterday. Seeing that the game was lost, Ryan Brown, our first baseman, was put in to pitch for the second time in this series and was lit up for another 4 runs as the Sox dropped the final game 16-5. At least Ryan got homerun #7 during the contest so it wasn't a totally bad day for him.

If anyone knows what the pitching rotation for the Sox is, can you let me know? I am thoroughly confused as to who is supposed to start, if we are still trying guys out, or if the strategy is to simply have a bunch of relivers each pitch 2-3 innings rather than have a true starter who can go 6-7.

In any event, the Sox now come home to Peccole for another 4 games with Chico. Hopefully they can reverse their fortunes at home. Reno now has the second half's worst record in the GBL. We need some wins so there is no time like the present to get that done. Let's go Sox!

And one final note...it looks like Ryan Crespi is headed back to play closer to home. No announcement on the Sox website but maybe Ben Deach will touch on it in the radio broadcast. He was a really good player and will be missed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great idea on Crespi SilverSox... Let your best hitter go & bring in terrible pitchers!
Sox season in a nutshell...


S.Sox

Anonymous said...

Crespi's contract was bought out by another team in the independent Can-Am league. Simply put it means money for the league so he went. The rotation is basically Hall, Russell, Frederick and whoever is fresh when the next start rolls around. Because of all the doubleheaders there won't be much of a true rotation.