Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Pacific Coast League in the Mid-South

Baseball 2009, Game 78: Nashville Sounds 5, Memphis Redbirds 1

Nashville Sloppiness: 1
Memphis Sloppiness: 5
Most batters in one inning: 8
Hitter of the Game: Carlos Corporan, Nashville (rating: 27)
Pitcher of the Game: Chris Cody, Nashville (rating: 104)
Time of Play: 2:34
Mid-game Temperature: 76 degrees
Attendance: 6,908 (Level II sporting event)

Historically, the Pacific Coast League was the biggest of all the minor leagues. All the major cities on the west coast had a team featuring home grown players not yet signed by MLB clubs. Without good transportation in the early 20th century, it took plenty of good scouting and money for an MLB team to steal a PCL player. The PCL nearly became the third major league in the 20th century. But when the Dodgers and Giants headed west, replacling the San Francisco Seals and Los Angeles Angels, the PCL became more minor. Eventually all West Coast talent was pooled in with the East Coast Talent, and the Pacific Coast League became the Western version of the International League which had been long a stopping point on the East Coast for MLB-bound prospects.

As MLB expanded westward, the PCL expanded eastward. Now the PCL serves as the home for 16 AAA teams in three time zones. Currently the PCL has 6 Pacific Time Zone Clubs, 3 Mountain Time Zone teams, and 7 more in the Central Time Zone. Tonight's matchup featured two of those Central Time Zone teams, the Memphis Redbirds and the Nashville Sounds. It is funny that today a Pacific Coast League game features two teams east of the Mississippi River, but so it goes in a league whose logo simply reads "Triple A Baseball".

The homestanding Nashville Sounds are one of three teams in AAA with worse attendance than the Charlotte Knights that we saw last weekend, as the Sounds average just under 4K a game. Tonight was a Level II sporting event because it was a Friday Fireworks night and it was also "Faith Night", where if you desire you can catch a pre-game Christian music concert featuring player-led prayers outside of Greer Stadium. I didn't stay around long enough to see whether the "Christian music" was like Eric Cartman's songs in the South Park episode "Christian Rock Hard".

But inside Greer Stadium you could find the quality of baseball expected from AAA. Both teams played very good games defensively, led by pitchers Chris Cody and Mitchell Boggs. Not much Sloppiness today, making this a pleasant game to watch.

Unfortunately the game didn't feature wold-class hitting. Other than the Sounds' Carlos Corporan's two doubles and a home run by the Redbirds' Jarrett Hoffpauir, the teams couldn't hit. The Redbirds' platoon between former Cardinal Joe Mather and former High Point outfielder Mark Shorey begins to make little sense when the lefty Shorey is batting .315 versus righty Mather's .180 batting average. This mismanagement may be why Memphis is the PCL's worst hitting team and why Memphis failed to score after Hoffpauir's solo shot in the 1st inning.

Eventually this caught up with Memphis, as Erick Almonte's pinch-hit RBI single tied the game and sent Boggs to the showers. Former Charlotte Knight Jason Bourgeois then came through with a two-run single to give Nashville a 3-1 lead.

After taking Cody out, the Sounds put in former Big South/Charleston Southern pitcher R.J. Swindle in the 8th, giving Nashville a lefty-lefty punch that kept Mather at the plate. But once the Redbirds became sloppy with two walks and a hit batter in the 8th, Nashville built their lead to 4-1. At this point reliever Royce Ring was benched in favor of Jess Todd, and Shorey also relieved Mather in right field. Shorey was able to make a good catch on the run to prevent Corporan from getting his third double, but a run came home to make the score 5-1. I will write more about Shorey tomorrow after he hopefully plays more.

5-1 was the final, as the home fans came away happy and the Cardinal fans at the game are left to ponder about who can potentially provide the big leaguers help at the plate after tonight. Let's hope that High Point's own Mark Shorey will be the answer soon.

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