Affiliate Changes & Lake County Playoff Preview

The Indians officially cut ties with Buffalo on Tuesday when they sent a termination letter to MLB indicating their desire to end their player development contract with them. This is the first step in their long anticipated move to Columbus, a move which should be made official sometime after September 15th. More on this in Happenings later this week.

Lake County will officially move to the Midwest League in 2010 with Bowling Green. Both clubs will play their final season in the South Atlantic League in 2009.

OF Nick Weglarz will be playing with Akron in the playoffs, and there is a strong possibility (unconfirmed) that LHP Scott Lewis will be with Akron as well.

RHP Annillins Martinez was removed from the Lake County roster and RHP Josh Judy was added today.

CAPTAINS AND POWER PLAYOFF PREVIEW

(Charleston, WV) – The Lake County Captains open post season play for the first time since 2003 on Wednesday at 7:05 PM in Charleston against the West Virginia Power, the Class “A” Affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. In game one, the Captains will send RHP Joey Mahalic (7-6, 4.19) to the mound to face the Power’s RHP R.J. Seidel (9-5, 4.51).

The series will be a best of three games with game two being played at Classic Park in Eastlake on Friday September 5th at 7:05 PM. Game three, if necessary, will be played on Saturday September 6th also at Classic Park at 7:05 PM.

The series will feature two teams with different strengths. The Captains, who won the first half title, are a team that relies on great pitching, good defense and speed and timely hitting. The Power is a club that has outstanding hitting, great speed and good pitching.

The Captains won the regular season series winning seven of the twelve meetings. The Captains were 3-0 at Appalachian Power Park but 4-5 at Classic Park in Eastlake.

The Captains are among the lead leaders in most pitching categories. They finished with the third lowest ERA (3.44), and allowed the fewest hits in the SAL by thirty hits, allowed the second fewest runs and were ranked fourth in the league in strikeouts. The one category they hope to improve on in the playoffs is walks, which is a category that they also led the league in.

Offensively the Captains had the fifth lowest batting average but the sixth highest on base percentage due to the fact they drew the second highest amount of walks in the league. The Captains ranked seventh in the league in runs scored and fifth in the league in stolen bases. Individually, the Captains Matt Brown finished ranked sixth in the SAL with a .308 batting average and 11th in the league in hits. Karexon Sanchez led the club in home runs with twelve.

The Power led the SAL in most offensive categories in 2008. They were the league leaders in batting average, on base percentage, hits, and runs scored. They were third in stolen bases and fifth highest in home runs. West Virginia had three of the top twelve hitters in the league and had three hitters in the top ten in hits.

Eric Fryer won the batting title (.335), led the league in on base percentage (.407) and was second in slugging percentage. Steffan Wilson was second in the league with 100 RBI’s, second in runs scored with 91 and tied for fifth in the league with nineteen RBI’s. Caleb Gindel was eighth in the league in batting average, third in hits, and fifth in on base percentage. Lee Haydel ended up the season fifth in batting average and eighth in stolen bases.

The Power pitching staff was ranked eighth highest in the SAL in ERA and allowed the eighth highest amount of runs. The staff allowed the sixth lowest amount of hits but walked the sixth highest amount of batters.

The winner for the series will play the winner of Southern Division Championship series between the August GreenJackets and Asheville Tourists. The SAL Championship series is best of five games with the first two games being played in the Southern Division Champions stadium beginning of Monday September 8th.

EARLY LEAD TO MUCH FOR THE SCRAPPERS TO OVERCOME

WILLIAMSPORT, PA- In the final road game of the season things did not start out well for the Scrappers as the Doubleday’s scored five runs. However the Scrappers responded scoring three in the top of the second, keyed by a 2 RBI double by Zach Booker and a RBI triple by Ramon Hernandez and the score was now 5-2 Doubleday’s after two innings.

The Doubleday’s then added two runs in the third and one in the fourth to stretch their lead out to 8-3 going to the sixth inning. In the top of the sixth the Scrappers added two more runs on a RBI single from Tim Fedroff and a sacrifice fly RBI by Ramon Hernandez and the score was now 8-5 Doubleday’s after six innings.

Both teams put up zeros for the next two innings and we went to the ninth inning still 8-5 in favor of the Doubleday’s. In the ninth the Scrappers went down and dropped the final road game of the season 8-5 Doubleday’s.

The Scrappers return home for the first of the final four games of the season Wednesday night at 7:05 against the Williamsport Crosscutters.

Posted in: