Home runs doom Explorers
By Terry Hersom, Journal sports editor | Posted: Monday, May 21, 2007
No doubt about it, the Sioux Falls Canaries owe a large debt of gratitude to their I-29 rivals, the Sioux City Explorers, for their fastest start in 15 seasons of independent professional baseball.
Launching three wind-blown home runs that plated five runs, the Canaries improved to 9-2 on the young American Association season with a 6-2 win over the X's in a Sunday evening matchup at Lewis and Clark Park.
On a day when routine fly balls to left or center field were apt to be blown out of the yard, the Yellow Birds had their uppercuts working as they improved their North Division lead to two games over the St. Paul Saints.
And, eight of the Sioux Falls club's first 11 games have been with the Explorers, whose disappointing 3-8 start has, in turn, been largely influenced by a 2-6 mark against an arch-rival the X's have dominated for the last five seasons.
Steve Shirley, the new Canaries manager who spent an abbreviated 2005 campaign as the Sioux City skipper, knows better than to pin too much significance on the season's first week-and-a-half. And, Shirley certainly isn't providing any bulletin board material for the X's, a team the Canaries still have to face a whopping 17 more times this season.
"Of course, I'm pleased with our start,'' said Shirley, who took over the reigns of a franchise that has had just three winning records in 14 previous seasons and just one in the last 10 years. "For me to say anything else would be ludicrous. Still, I think there are things we can improve on. It's a good beginning, but there's still a middle and an end.''
Fast-working veteran righthander Brad Guy, losing for the third time in as many starts, was tagged for all six runs, yet he very well might have pitched eight shutout innings if not for the wind.
Guy surrendered eight hits and seven of them came in two spurts that produced all the Canaries' scoring.
In the second inning, Will Smith's one-out homer blew over the center field wall, Ben Van Iderstine beat out a high chopper to third for an infield single, and Matt Imwalle's fly ball to left-center was wafted over the wall for a two-run bomb and a 3-0 lead.
Tim Marks followed the homer by Imwalle with a double, but Guy didn't allow another hit until some more tough luck in the fifth.
Angelo Fermin dumped a leadoff single into right field and James Shanks hit a bouncer that second baseman Alex Llanos might have turned into a double play if he hadn't just vacated his normal post, starting toward second with Fermin on the move.
The speedy Shanks, then, stole second, drawing a throw from catcher Mike Richardson. And, when Llanos dropped the ball, attempting to tag Shanks, Fermin alertly scooted home.
The next batter, Trevor Lawhorn, lofted a two-run homer into the jet stream to open up a 6-0 advantage.
Guy gamely retired 12 of 13 subsequent batters he faced, getting his team through the eighth inning.
Meanwhile, lefthander Ryan Ford, the Sioux Falls starter, worked four shutout innings despite taking a liner off his pitching hand in the second inning. Ford had to leave the game with nobody out in the fifth, failing to qualify for the win after losing feeling in his fingers and loading the bases with two straight four-pitch walks.
Lenny Bays, the winner with three innings in relief, yielded a sixth-inning run on base hits by Jorge Moreno and Pete Pirman. Then, Aaron Garrison, working the final two frames, surrendered a leadoff homer in the ninth to Julian Benavidez.
It was just the fourth homer of the year for the X's, who led the league last season with 93 over a 96-game schedule.
Sioux Falls, meanwhile, has now homered a league-high 13 times. Six of the other nine teams in the circuit had three or less round-trippers coming into Sunday's action.
"They put three balls up in the air, we got one,'' bemoaned X's Manager Ed Nottle. "We're not hitting with authority.''
The Canaries had six different players account for seven home runs in the four-game series and, oddly enough, one of them wasn't veteran first baseman Abner Arroyo, who has totaled 24 homers the last two seasons while batting .330 and .321. Arroyo, about the only Canary who isn't hitting thus far, saw his average dip to .205 Sunday and all nine of his hits are singles.
The Explorers have far more than one slow starter. Coming into Sunday's game, five players in the lineup were batting .238 or below. Nottle is confident that will turn around, as is Shirley.
"That's a very good lineup over there, so I'm always pleased if we're able to get a good pitching performance against them,'' said Shirley.
X's AND OH's: Sioux City native J.D. Scholten, who has now pitched for the hometown X's in four different seasons, pitched a scoreless ninth inning Sunday, fanning two batters. Scholten kept his ERA at 0.00 after four outings that have totaled five innings. He's basically filling in as the closer for newly acquired Brian Hewitt, who has been unable to answer the bell as yet due to what appears to be only a minor injury....
Nottle said he thinks Hewitt is still three or four days away from becoming available and some roster moves in the works may require him to be post-dated on the league's disabled list to keep the Explorers from exceeding the 22-man limit. Meanwhile, lefthander Mike Nunes, an effective set-up man a year ago, has also been idle for the first 11 games but should be ready to go by Tuesday, when the X's begin a three-game series here against St. Paul....
The first day off of the season today has enabled Nottle to juggle his rotation slightly, giving Rafael Gross an extra two days before his next trip to the hill. Gross was superb in a 7-1 win last Wednesday at St. Paul, surrendering just one hit, but he had to leave the game with one out in the seventh due to minor tightness. As a result, Alexander Francisco moves up to start Tuesday's series opener, Ty Marotz will pitch Wednesday and Gross gets the call Thursday....
Guy will make his next start on Friday, the opener of a three-game series at St. Joseph, which now shares last place in the North standings with the X's after a 7-5 win Sunday over St. Paul. It appears as though Saturday's start could go to righthander Aaron Wilson, who will be joining the team today after being acquired from the Atlantic City Surf of the Can-Am League, which doesn't start its season until Thursday....
Wilson, apparently moving into the No. 5 starter's role after two rocky outings by former Nebraska star Aaron Marsden, is the all-time wins leader at the University of San Diego, where he was 11-3 as a senior in 2004. He spent one season in the Phillies' farm system, then pitched the last two years for the San Diego Surf Dawgs of the Golden League. He was 7-3 with a 3.58 earned run average in 18 starts two years ago, then split time between starting and relieving last year.
Launching three wind-blown home runs that plated five runs, the Canaries improved to 9-2 on the young American Association season with a 6-2 win over the X's in a Sunday evening matchup at Lewis and Clark Park.
On a day when routine fly balls to left or center field were apt to be blown out of the yard, the Yellow Birds had their uppercuts working as they improved their North Division lead to two games over the St. Paul Saints.
And, eight of the Sioux Falls club's first 11 games have been with the Explorers, whose disappointing 3-8 start has, in turn, been largely influenced by a 2-6 mark against an arch-rival the X's have dominated for the last five seasons.
Steve Shirley, the new Canaries manager who spent an abbreviated 2005 campaign as the Sioux City skipper, knows better than to pin too much significance on the season's first week-and-a-half. And, Shirley certainly isn't providing any bulletin board material for the X's, a team the Canaries still have to face a whopping 17 more times this season.
"Of course, I'm pleased with our start,'' said Shirley, who took over the reigns of a franchise that has had just three winning records in 14 previous seasons and just one in the last 10 years. "For me to say anything else would be ludicrous. Still, I think there are things we can improve on. It's a good beginning, but there's still a middle and an end.''
Fast-working veteran righthander Brad Guy, losing for the third time in as many starts, was tagged for all six runs, yet he very well might have pitched eight shutout innings if not for the wind.
Guy surrendered eight hits and seven of them came in two spurts that produced all the Canaries' scoring.
In the second inning, Will Smith's one-out homer blew over the center field wall, Ben Van Iderstine beat out a high chopper to third for an infield single, and Matt Imwalle's fly ball to left-center was wafted over the wall for a two-run bomb and a 3-0 lead.
Tim Marks followed the homer by Imwalle with a double, but Guy didn't allow another hit until some more tough luck in the fifth.
Angelo Fermin dumped a leadoff single into right field and James Shanks hit a bouncer that second baseman Alex Llanos might have turned into a double play if he hadn't just vacated his normal post, starting toward second with Fermin on the move.
The speedy Shanks, then, stole second, drawing a throw from catcher Mike Richardson. And, when Llanos dropped the ball, attempting to tag Shanks, Fermin alertly scooted home.
The next batter, Trevor Lawhorn, lofted a two-run homer into the jet stream to open up a 6-0 advantage.
Guy gamely retired 12 of 13 subsequent batters he faced, getting his team through the eighth inning.
Meanwhile, lefthander Ryan Ford, the Sioux Falls starter, worked four shutout innings despite taking a liner off his pitching hand in the second inning. Ford had to leave the game with nobody out in the fifth, failing to qualify for the win after losing feeling in his fingers and loading the bases with two straight four-pitch walks.
Lenny Bays, the winner with three innings in relief, yielded a sixth-inning run on base hits by Jorge Moreno and Pete Pirman. Then, Aaron Garrison, working the final two frames, surrendered a leadoff homer in the ninth to Julian Benavidez.
It was just the fourth homer of the year for the X's, who led the league last season with 93 over a 96-game schedule.
Sioux Falls, meanwhile, has now homered a league-high 13 times. Six of the other nine teams in the circuit had three or less round-trippers coming into Sunday's action.
"They put three balls up in the air, we got one,'' bemoaned X's Manager Ed Nottle. "We're not hitting with authority.''
The Canaries had six different players account for seven home runs in the four-game series and, oddly enough, one of them wasn't veteran first baseman Abner Arroyo, who has totaled 24 homers the last two seasons while batting .330 and .321. Arroyo, about the only Canary who isn't hitting thus far, saw his average dip to .205 Sunday and all nine of his hits are singles.
The Explorers have far more than one slow starter. Coming into Sunday's game, five players in the lineup were batting .238 or below. Nottle is confident that will turn around, as is Shirley.
"That's a very good lineup over there, so I'm always pleased if we're able to get a good pitching performance against them,'' said Shirley.
X's AND OH's: Sioux City native J.D. Scholten, who has now pitched for the hometown X's in four different seasons, pitched a scoreless ninth inning Sunday, fanning two batters. Scholten kept his ERA at 0.00 after four outings that have totaled five innings. He's basically filling in as the closer for newly acquired Brian Hewitt, who has been unable to answer the bell as yet due to what appears to be only a minor injury....
Nottle said he thinks Hewitt is still three or four days away from becoming available and some roster moves in the works may require him to be post-dated on the league's disabled list to keep the Explorers from exceeding the 22-man limit. Meanwhile, lefthander Mike Nunes, an effective set-up man a year ago, has also been idle for the first 11 games but should be ready to go by Tuesday, when the X's begin a three-game series here against St. Paul....
The first day off of the season today has enabled Nottle to juggle his rotation slightly, giving Rafael Gross an extra two days before his next trip to the hill. Gross was superb in a 7-1 win last Wednesday at St. Paul, surrendering just one hit, but he had to leave the game with one out in the seventh due to minor tightness. As a result, Alexander Francisco moves up to start Tuesday's series opener, Ty Marotz will pitch Wednesday and Gross gets the call Thursday....
Guy will make his next start on Friday, the opener of a three-game series at St. Joseph, which now shares last place in the North standings with the X's after a 7-5 win Sunday over St. Paul. It appears as though Saturday's start could go to righthander Aaron Wilson, who will be joining the team today after being acquired from the Atlantic City Surf of the Can-Am League, which doesn't start its season until Thursday....
Wilson, apparently moving into the No. 5 starter's role after two rocky outings by former Nebraska star Aaron Marsden, is the all-time wins leader at the University of San Diego, where he was 11-3 as a senior in 2004. He spent one season in the Phillies' farm system, then pitched the last two years for the San Diego Surf Dawgs of the Golden League. He was 7-3 with a 3.58 earned run average in 18 starts two years ago, then split time between starting and relieving last year.
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