Beloit Repoit
Posted by Big Mak on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 8:00 am
I went up last weekend on Sunday to see the Snappers take on the Peoria Chiefs (the Chicago Cubs A-level team). The Snappers won to complete the 3-game sweep and move to two games over .500, which was their high-water mark for this season to that point.
Final Score: Beloit 5, Peoria 4 (box score - play-by-play)
Pictures and more to follow
Peoria is managed by Ryne Sandberg, who's in his second year of managing the team. He had a flock of people following him around whenever he would leave the field, but he seemed to be in good spirits during the lineup card exchange.
I was excited to see Ben Revere play since he's been tearing up the league in his short stint there, but he wasn't in the lineup for this game, so I can't report much of anything other than that he is capable of playing catch.
Besides Revere, Chris Parmelee is one of the other intriguing prospects on the current Beloit team. In addition, he was one of the few lefties in the lineup, so he was facing me in the 3rd base bleachers when he batted. So I was ready to try to snap some shots of his swing.
First attempt: no good, taking all the way.
Next attempt: way outside.
At some point, he'll swing the bat, right?
Alright, this is the last one, if he doesn't swing here, I give up.
Just kidding, one more try!
Bah, somehow he saw through my clever ruse. Parmelee has far and away the most strikeouts and the most walks on the Snappers roster. He didn't disappoint on Sunday. In fact, he didn't put a ball in play in any of his 3 trips to the plate (1 SO, 2 BB).
David Bromberg was the starting pitcher for the Snappers. He has pitched well after a couple of rocky starts at the beginning of the season, and I thought this was another well pitched game, 6 IP, 96 pitches, 65 strikes, 6 SO, 2 BB, 2 ER, 7 H. There weren't any innings where he really labored (23 pitches in the second was the highest of any inning).
I remember Bert Blyleven always used to stick out his tongue when he threw a curveball (or something like that). Could that be what's going on here with Bromberg? I can't tell if what type of grip he had on the pitch, but in the other pics of him I don't see his tongue at all.
Loek Van Mil came in and pitched two innings of relief, he struck out one, walked two, allowed a run, and got bailed out a little bit when the potential tying run was thrown out as a result of a poorly thought out baserunning adventure (resulting in the most interesting scorebook notation of the day, the 8-2-5-4 double play).
I tried to get some shots of the action that were a bit more dynamic than the pitcher sticking out his tongue, or the batter taking nearly every pitch thrown to him. Matt Dolenc made a nice running catch in right field, the ball was right down the line, as you can see below.
Then, in the top of the fourth, Greg Yersich gunned down a Peoria base-stealer at second.
It turns out that the pitch was strike three to the batter, ending the inning and rendering the baserunner meaningless, but I like the picture, so it stays.
Beloit's offense started with Jair Fernandez reaching base on an error then scoring on Ramon Santana's two-run single in the second. Joe Benson delivered a 2-out, 3-run double that hit off the center field fence in the air in the fifth inning to put Beloit ahead for good. Matt Williams pitched a perfect ninth to get the save.
More of my pictures of the game are on flickr.
Loading ...
I'm looking at the "caught stealing" picture before reading the text and am thinking, OMG he's out by ten feet! Nice report and nice photos!
I was so focused on the picture I didn't realize it was strike three until the next inning when my scorecard didn't match the announced batter.
Solid first-hand account of the Twins' future, and great photos. Damn, Ryno looks pretty buff ...
Judd
C.P. Twins Blogger
Nice pictures, Mak. Looks like you had some freaking awesome seats.
We were in general admission, we showed up early enough to basically have our pick of seats in the 3rd base bleachers, but not early enough to capitalize on the free giveway (some plastic ball with the Snappers' logo).
Things you'll see at a minor league park, but never in a major league park: note all the fans standing along the rail behind Parmelee.
Nice pics! I wish you'd caught Loek Van Mil somewhere where you could get a perspective of his height, like dwarfing the fair pole or something. Love the first base ump's positioning on the Dolenc catch - very nice.
That's a good idea Rhu_Ru, I'll see what I can do when I go back up there this weekend.
I thought he looked like an adult playing on a kids'-sized field--he just looks too big for the mound. Not that I'm adverse to seeing pitchers with a good comparison, though.
(I'm hoping that I can make a trip out to Beloit some weekend, since my originally-planned trip to Rochester fell through.)