I have no complaints if one of our draftees who we traded to win ourselves a pennant is doing well with his new organization:


Justus Sheffield was loving his teammates' work so much he couldn't watch anymore. During a six-run fourth inning, he had to take a break.
Sheffield followed the lengthy break with a shutdown inning, a common theme on Sunday afternoon, as the Yankees' No. 6 prospect tossed a three-hitter for his first career complete game in Double-A Trenton's 6-0 blanking of Erie in the first game of a doubleheader at Arm & Hammer Park.

Trenton completed a sweep with a 4-2 win in the nightcap. "I hold myself to a high standard every time out there and every time I'm out there, I'm shooting for the limits," Sheffield said. "I knew we had seven [innings] today and I wanted to get seven in. If we were just playing a normal game, I'm shooting for nine, even though that can be tough at times with the pitch count and things like that. I feel like if you set yourself at a high standard, you'll be able to be efficient, keep the pitch count low and pitch deep into games. That's one of my goals this year."

With that mindset, MLB.com's No. 68 overall prospect breezed through his 13th start of the season and dropped his ERA to 2.99. Sheffield allowed a leadoff single to Gabriel Quintana in the second inning and hit Mike Gerber with a pitch one out later but stranded both. The left-hander issued his only walk of the day to Harold Castro with one out in the third but also left him aboard.

Then came that fourth. After retiring the SeaWolves in order in the top half, Sheffield watched as his team sent 10 men to the plate and scored six runs in the bottom half -- or at least watched as long as he could.
"I went back under the stadium in the cages and threw a little bit, walked around, stretched out a little bit just so I stayed loose because I remember earlier in the season where it was kind of a long inning and I ended up going out there not feeling warm because I was sitting down for so long," he said. "I just didn't feel like I was feeling before that inning. I thought back to that and told myself, 'Let's get up, move around, get the arm moving.'"

Richie Shaffer with his 16th homer. 283/379/552 54 rbi Leads the IL in RBI. Tied for the lead in homers. Second in strikeouts trailing only teammate NellieRodriguez.

Chang's 14th homer for Akron, 3 guys ahead of him in the EL.

Esparza another fine start: 6 5 2 2 1 5

I guess we can just pretend McKenzie wasn't pitching today. Someone who looks like him though allowed 3 homers in 1 2/3 innings, leading to 7 runs.
No one's perfect.

Hillcats' debut by Silento Sayles as a pinch hitter. Thought maybe he'd been released.

Ka'ai Tom's 6th homer.

No homers today, but Junior Soto matches his season total with 2 singles.

Jose Medina who also mashed 3 homers in a game earlier in the season [despite some article I read that said Soto was the first Captain to hit 3 in game since Jesus Aguillar] hit his 6th homer today and added a single

The final Lake County outfielder, Isaacs singled and drew a rare walk.

But the Captains lost to drop to 15 under .500.
But all the rest of our teams have been heating up, so have a combined +15 and the whole system is squarely at the 500 mark.

Scrappers open up tomorrow. Roster includes Grant Hockin who'll be back in action for the first time since 2014 when he was a 2nd round pick.

surprising number of teenagers on the MHV roster, at least until some of this year draftees sign and perhaps some of the kids at shipped elsewhere.

From last year's draft we have 19 year olds:
1B Ulysses Cantu
3B Nolan Jones
LF Oscar Gonzalez
RF Will Benson [turned 19 on Friday]
LHP Francisco Perez 5-1 2.69 1.02 WHIP for Arizona team last summer

and not 19 until July:
2B Samad Taylor

today's roster shows 10 position players for the Scrappers. Maybe a few kids will sign and arrive in time for Monday's game at West Virginia.

Arizona team opens on Saturday. Their roster currently shows 6 pitchers and no position players. Lots of Dominican and Venezuelan players in camp should be ready to join the team.

The most recent roster I saw this morning had 11 position players. 13 pitchers. Still one spot open.

The Clippers beat the Braves 9-3 today. ... Naquin had a walk and a run, 0-3. ... Guyer was 1-1 with a homer, a walk, a HBP, and 3 runs scored. ... Papi 1-3.

Ducks won 3-2 on the Frankie walk off as I mentioned earlier. ... Esparza 6 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K. ... Krieger 1-3. ... Bradley 0-4. ... Chang 1-4 with a homer. ... Frankie 1-1 with the walk off double. He is hitting .375 now.

Lynchburg loses 11-5 today, but they still clinched a playoff spot by finishing the first half in 1st place. Salem dropped a double header today. ... Isn't it a little weird how that works? Clinching a postseason spot by finishing in 1st place in the first half of the season? I mean, some guys will move on by seasons end. What if a team loses a couple great prospects, loses their last 10 games, and finish in 3rd place? Oh well, whatever.

McKenzie's ship sank in the Frederick Keys. 1.2 IP, 6 H, 7 ER, 1 BB, 1 K. ... Loopstok 0-4 and Castro 0-5.

Lynchburg got more good news as Brock Hartson was added to the Carolina League all star roster. That is 7 now for the Hillcats.

Lake County's modest 4 game winning streak came to an end today, losing to South Bend 9-3. ... Chu 1-4.

BA lines for Sunday games:

CLE AA Bradley, Bobby 1B 4 0 0 0 .250
CLE AA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 4 1 1 1 .219 HR (14)
CLE AA Krieger, Tyler 2B 3 1 1 0 .235
CLE AA Mejia, Francisco PH-DH 1 0 1 1 .375 2B (15)
CLE AAA Rodriguez, Nellie 1B 1 0 0 0 .137 BB (25)
CLE HiA Castro, Willi SS 5 0 0 0 .276
CLE MAJ Zimmer, Bradley CF 4 0 2 0 .286
CLE HiA McKenzie, Triston 1.2 6 7 7 1 1 3.28 L (5-4)

Columbus Clippers @CLBClippers
The International League has announced that @ShawnMorimando has been named the IL Pitcher of the Week!!

READ MORE: milb.com/clippers/news/…

Opening day pitcher for the Scrappers is indeed: LHP Francisco Perez 5-1 2.69 1.02 WHIP for Arizona team last summer. Only full season team in action is Columbus, with Michael Peoples on the hill.

In the Dominican the DSL Indians played the DSL semi-Indians, team shared with the Brewers. the half Indians beat the 100% Indians.

for the Full-Blooded Indians, SS Jonathan Lopez who Hillbilly has been citing, raised his average to 417 with his 5th double and 3rd triple.
Other cool first names on this team: Wilbis, Jeikol, Yainer.

How do we know which of the kids on the Indians/Brewers are ours?

Indians Prospective‏ @indiansPro 5 hours ago
(Scrappers) Added today INF Jonathan Laureano

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Indians Prospective‏ @indiansPro 23 minutes ago
#Indians 2017 20nd Round Draft Pick Jr. RHP Clark Jonathan Teaney University of San Diego has signed & reports to Mahoning Valley Wednesday.
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#Indians 2017 17th Round pick J1 OF Pedro Alfonseca out of Black Hawk College has signed & will start his career in Arizona Rookie League.
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#Indians 2017 29th Round Draft Pick Jr. OF Tre Gantt out of The Ohio State University has signed & will report to Arizona on Thursday.
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Yay, I have another Buckeye to root on along with Tully!

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Mark D. Robertson‏ @MDRwrites 4 hours ago
@LynHillcats going to the Carolina League all-star festivities in style... #MiLB #Indians #Hillcats