Cleveland Sports Forum

Nice beginning for Pannone, struck out first two batters. Then a single followed by a pop up to 3rd.

Thought I would follow game on Gamecast on the Akron web site. They have a box up over home plate showing locations of pitches. You can see one reason why he's had success. He is painting corners and keeping ball down.

And Frankie just doubles to RF in bottom of 1. Hopefully his slump is over.

Minor League Baseball.com honored Pannone as their High-A pitcher of the month for April. Would have been tough to find anyone than his 0.00 ERA 0.6 WHIP 1.4K/IP.

He doesn't appear to be severely overwhelmed by AA hitters. He's going against the Yankees' Trenton team which has an 18-010 record and features their No. 1 Prospect Gleybar Torres and some other serious prospects. He started out by striking out the first hitters of the game. He's currently working in the 5th with 2 out, just got the third, three grounders this inning. His AA ERA is no worse than his mark in Lynchburg. His line: 5-3-0-0-2-6. He's thrown 81 pitches so I'm guessing that's it for tonight.

At some point someone's report on just what his pitching arsenal consists of.

[sort of overlapped with Hillbilly's report I see, sorry]

Got to hear the bottom of the 5th, when Sever homered, Krieger walked and was picked off, Mejia and Bradley singled, and Chang left them on with a fly out.

Top of the 6th, Pannone did come back out. G.Torres with the first fly out of the night for Trenton. Then a grounder but after he walked the next man, he was relieved. Fortunately Cole Sulser ended the inning and Pannone's scoreless streak [discounting one unearned run in April] dating back to last August reaches 50 2/3 innings. As the announcer said, when Pannone exited to polite applause, probably few in Akron crowd recognized the degree of his accomplishment. They siad his command was terrific throughout the evening. It must!

5.2 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 6 K was his final line. And I tell ya, you may look at that and say he walked too many, but if the pitchcast box on Gamecast is correct he was getting squeezed badly. You could not walk up and place the ball in better spots, very bottom corner of the box, and was consistently called balls. One of his walks, 3 of the balls was all in the exact same spot, bottom corner of the box inside to hitter. His location is insane right now.

Squeezing our boy Pannone? Get out the pitchforks and torches.

Clip show was spanked tonight 9-2 by the Durham Bulls. I think even Crash Davis had a hit. ... Morimando was not good. 4 IP, 9 H, 8 ER, 3 BB, 4 K. ... Armstrong pitched a perfect inning, 2 K. ... Zimmer 1-3 double and walk. ... Gonzalez 0-4, he's been slumping lately after hot start.

The Rubber Duckies beat the Trenton Thunder 4-3 on the back of the aforementioned Pannone. Trenton scored 3 in top of 8th to take lead. Then Bradley hit a 2 run homer in btm of 8th for the win. ... Krieger 1-3 w/ walk. ... Frankie 2-3 with double and walk. ... Bradley 2-4 with the homer. ... Chang and Papi both 1-3 with walk. Papi hitting .294 now after slow start. He's been real hot last couple weeks. But usually just when I start having hope again he goes into another prolonged slump.

Lynchburg had night off.

Lake County lost again, sigh, 7-6. ... Miniard joined Morimando in tossing batting practice this evening. 6 IP, 10 H, 6 ER, 0 BB, 4 K. At least he didn't walk anybody.... LOL ... Ice 0-2 with 2 walks. Is it just me or does this guy get a walk or two every game? ... Chu 2-4, hopefully coming out of his slumber. ... Isaacs 0-4.

Indians Prospective @indians Pro
#Indians LHP prospect Thomas Pannone has not allowed an (Earned Run) over his last 51.1 Innings.
- 51.1(IP) 23H 1R 0ER 16BB 66SO 0.00 ERA

Lake County #Captains transaction
LHP Alsis Herrera promoted from extended spring training

#Indians MiLB starters for Tuesday:

Columbus - Michael Peoples
Akron - D.J. Brown
Lynchburg - Triston McKenzie
Lake County - Aaron Civale

Lake County #Captains transaction
LHP Alsis Herrera promoted from extended spring training

Had a flashback to Winter Haven sitting and chatting with Alex Herrera when he was a young kid waiting for his chance. Think he made JoeZ's list of 1000 favorite players.

Alex H was a hard-throwing lefty, right guy?

Morimando's ERA has escalated into Bauer neighborhood, over 7, taking over the team "lead" from Plutko.
Merritt has been merely mediocre by contrast.
Our starting pitching depth is really only 6-men deep.

Monday lines from BA:

CLE AA Bradley, Bobby 1B 4 1 2 2 .193 HR (6)
CLE AA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 3 1 1 0 .200 BB (11)
CLE AA Krieger, Tyler 2B 3 0 1 0 .268 BB (12)
CLE AA Mathias, Mark 3B 4 0 0 0 .154
CLE AA Mejia, Francisco C 3 1 2 0 .293 2B (8), BB (5)
CLE AAA Gonzalez, Erik SS 4 0 0 0 .277
CLE AAA Rodriguez, Nellie 1B 4 0 0 0 .100
CLE AAA Zimmer, Bradley CF 3 0 1 1 .257 2B (10), BB (11)
CLE LoA Ice, Logan DH 2 1 0 0 .258 2 BB (20)
CLE MAJ Diaz, Yandy LF 3 0 0 0 .224 BB (6)
CLE AAA Armstrong, Shawn 1 0 0 0 0 2 4.26
CLE AAA Morimando, Shawn 4 9 8 8 3 4 7.11 L (2-4)
CLE LoA Miniard, Micah 6 10 7 6 0 4 5.14 L (1-2)

I guess Morimando and Nellie Rodriguez are in the lead for "breakdown" picks for 2017

Yeah, Columbus rotation was supposed to be real good and give us great depth but right now Merritt is best guy there and his ERA is something like 4.67.

You say 6 men deep but that is counting Bauer. I say 5 man deep cause I refuse to count on Bauer anymore. I'm about to give up on Tomlin too. He usually doesn't stink this early in year. It's later when he wears down.

Bauer is unreliable but he's a useful backup and has potential to get it back in gear. Merritt is No. 7 and there's no one we'd dare use after him. Of our top prospects pre-season only pitchers among the top 10 were McKenzie and Aiken and they're way down in Class A, although McKenzie is looking really good.

If you didn't post it[this may or may not be where I read it] Allen did indeed break his hamate bone and is on the DL

Oh, I did see that yesterday, but with all the excitement with Yandy and Pannone I forgot to post it.

Tribe Insider @TribeInsider 15h
System moves today
+Place Greg Allen on DL in Akron (broken hamate, R hand)
+Transfer LHP Alsis Herrera from Ext. Spring to Lake County