Mets Farm Report: June 10th, 2011

Buffalo Bisons 6 | Indianapolis Indians 12

With Lucas Duda being promoted and Kirk Nieuwenhuis landing himself on the DL with a left shoulder injury this Bisons team has gone to being nothing exciting at all.

Mark Cohoon had his third consecutive bad outing to begin his Triple-A career. As bad as he has been you can say he has been consistent. It is just too bad he hasn’t been consistent in a good way. Cohoon has gone five innings in each start, given up a homer, allowed five or six runs, and walked 2, 3, and 3 batters. He gets another five starts at Triple-A before the skepticism should start to kick in.

The only three batters worth watching all had good games. Michael Fisher is one of the more unorthodox leadoff hitters I have seen used by a manager, but he played the part by getting on base three times with a single and two walks. Fernando Martinez is serving as the new cleanup hitter and also got on base three times with two hits and a walk. Zach Lutz is finally back and doing what he does best by picking up a double and scoring twice. This game could have been a little closer if the Bisons didn’t get thrown out twice at third and once at home.

Stars of the Game: 1. Zach Lutz (2-for-5, 2B, 2 R) (13pts) 2. Fernando Martinez (2-for-4, R, BB, K) (21pts) 3. Michael Fisher (1-for-4, 2 BB) (19pts)

Binghamton Mets | 3 Trenton Thunder 7

Ugh. It was “that time of the week” today. Yes, that day to suffer through another Brad Holt start. Holt is making Oliver Perez look like an enticing option again. Perez by the way is 2-1 with a 1.89 ERA while striking out 14 and walking just three in 19 innings for the Nationals’ Double-A affiliate. After miraculously walking none in the first inning Holt went on to walk two in the 2nd, two in the 3rd, and then two again in the 4th before ever recording an out. On top of that he threw two wild pitches and balked once. Holt walked four more batters in his 3+ innings of work than the seven other pitchers in the remaining 14 innings. I think it is time to replace him with Matt Harvey in the starting rotation.

Maybe something clicked in Jordany Valdespin‘s head after his recent benching. He got the B-Mets off to a good start today with a leadoff homerun, but because of Holt’s performance the homerun didn’t mean much. Since returning he is 6-for-15 with two homeruns. Brahiam “I only get extra base hits” Maldonado picked up his 11th homerun of the year. 60% of his hits this year are of the extra base variety. Now if he could just throw in some singles and get his average above .200 that’d be nice.

Stars of the Game: 1. Jordany Valdespin (4-for-5, 2B, HR, RBI, 2 R) (25pts) 2. Brahiam Maldonado (1-for-4, HR, R, RBI, SB, K) (30pts) 3. Josh Satin (2-for-5, K) (47pts)

St. Lucie Mets 3 | Charlotte Stone Crabs 9

When you are a sinkerball pitcher who does not strikeout a lot of guys and you aren’t keeping the ball down in the zone this is what is going to happen. Teams will spray the ball all over the field on you and pick up hit after hit. 11 of the Stone Crabs 12 hits off of Scott Moviel to the poor command of his fastball he displayed. Moviel and John Church can thank Travis Ozga and Rylan Sandoval for both committing errors in the 6th and being responsible for five unearned runs scored in the inning.

Matt Den Dekker hit his third homerun in the last seven games and more importantly his first homerun of the year off a left handed pitcher. The most encouraging part is that it was a very good prospect who is tough on left handed hitters and was coincidentally the first homerun he has given up to a left handed hitter all year. With a 0-for-4 game Francisco Pena‘s average dipped below .200 for the first time all year. After hitting .300 in April and it looking like his bat had finally come around, he hit .167 in May and is hitting .080 in June.

Stars of the Game: 1. Matt Den Dekker (2-for-4, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI) (37pts) 2. Cesar Puello (1-for-3, BB) (20pts) 3. Pedro Zapata (1-for-4, 2B, R, BB, K) (14pts)

Savannah Sand Gnats 8 | Augusta GreenJackets 1

*Prospect Crush Alert* Greg Peavey has become my first real pitching prospect crush since Jon Niese, pretty good company to be in. I am a sucker for control pitchers that have average to above-average stuff and Peavey fits that mold as well as any pitcher that has gone through the Mets system in the last couple of years (he has a bit better stuff than Dillon Gee). Peavey pitched an effortless six innings, allowing just a baserunner in three of the innings and walking no batters yet again. The walks in his last nine stars: 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, and 0.

The Sand Gnats offense was at it once again putting up double-digit hits for the second game in a row and of even greater performance hitting well with runners in scoring position. Down by one run entering the 4th the Gnats put up three runs in the inning with a Aderlin Rodriguez RBI single, Blake Forsythe sac fly, and Joe Bonfe RBI double. Two innings later the Gnats did even better plating five runs in an 11-man inning. With three runs already across the plate in the inning and two outs Robbie Shields laced a double off the center field wall to score the final two runs.

Stars of the Game: 1. Robbie Shields (2-for-4,  2B, R, 2 RBI, BB) (30pts) 2. Greg Peavey (W, 6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 6 SO) (9pts) 3. Blake Forsythe (1-for-3, 2B, R, 3 RBI)(18pts)