For those of you who have already clicked to see what's after the break: yep, that's it. Just two games. All-Star Tuesday was an off-day for six of the D-backs affiliates, leaving just the Hi-A Visalia and Dominican Summer League squads in action. Although there weren't as many candidates for the award today, there was still one plenty-deserving candidate who stood out from the crowd for Snakelet of the Day:
Snakelet of the Day:
Bobby Borchering (Hi-A): 2-5, 2B, HR, R, 3 RBI, K
Hi-A (10 innings): Visalia 5, San Jose 8. (41-47) Some unfortunate defense led to three of the first four runs allowed by the Rawhide going into the books as unearned, and after ending the ninth tied at four, the Giants woke up in extra innings off of Rawhide reliever Brian Budrow. Trevor Harden's start was successful, allowing just one earned run (two total) in five innings of work with five strikeouts, though he did allow a home run and walked three batters. Derek Eitel threw a pair of scoreless relief innings, striking out two, walking one, and recording three ground-ball outs. I assume that the purpose behind Eitel working in relief is the monitoring of his innings, as he's already surpassed last year's innings count of 64.1 with a 2011 total of 84.2, though that total from 2010 was admittedly after a season of college ball. We'll have to see what the club does with Eitel going forward.
Offensively, the star of the show was clearly Bobby Borchering. Borchering continues to put his impressive power on display in the Cal League, and it's becoming more and more difficult to make a clear judgment on whether Borchering or Matt Davidson is the better prospect. Both are having so-so overall seasons at the plate, though they become all the more impressive when their combined age of 40 years old is considered. Borchering has definitely shown more power, with his .206 ISO besting Davidson's .166 figure, but Davidson's .347 OBP (and 93:33 K:BB ratio) is dramatically superior to Borchering's .316 figure (and 107:26 K:BB ratio). I'd currently give a slight edge to Davidson. It'll be extremely interesting to see what the organization does with the two prospects to begin 2012 - move them up aggressively to Double-A, or give them another couple months in Hi-A to (hopefully) rake before moving them up to Mobile?
DSL: D-backs 6, Cubs1 1. (14-23) To answer your first question, I have no idea if the DSL D-backs beating the DSL Cubs1 meant we beat the good Latin American Cubs or the bad Latin American Cubs... This was just another classic DSL game. Just two extra-base hits (both, strangely enough, hit by the Cubs), more runs scored that hits for the winning club, and a total of 16 combined walks and hit-by-pitches. This league is just weird. Shortstop Juan Heredia drew four of those walks for the DSL D-backs, and Yorman Garcia drove in two with a single and a walk. The pitching combination of Jency Solis (3 IP), Jose Gonzalez (4 IP), and Jonathan Perez (2 IP) produced a strong 9:2 K:BB ratio over nine one-run innings.