Tag Archives: Rochester Red Wings

2014 Rochester Red Wings in Review, Part 2: Five Things We Learned

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Apologies for being late, but here are five things we learned from the 2014 Rochester Red Wings season:

1. It is possible to throw a No-Hitter in two different states and two different months

2. Geography is Destiny

3. As always, the fate of a Minor League Team is in large part outside of it’s control

Make no mistake, the purpose of AAA baseball teams is, and always will be, to provide a place for future MLB players to get ready for The Show. Winning is of only secondary importance, and, with rare exception, no AAA team will go the season with all of their key pieces untouched. What’s more, there are still the other hazards that haunt every baseball club: injuries, slumps, players that just don’t work out or underperform.

This year’s Red Wings were a perfect example of that. The Red Wings played 144 games this season. Only six position players were in at least 100 of them, only four were in at least 120 of them, and only two (Eric Farris, who’s “get to know your Wings” scoreboard segment was by far the best, and Aussie infielder James Beresford) were in at least 130 of them. Danny Santana, who many thought would be in Rochester for a good chunk of the season, ended up only playing 24 games, while Darin Mastroianni was lost to first the Majors and then to the Blue Jays through waivers after just four games. Chris Parmelee, the leading power threat through the first month of the season, was also gone early. The vaunted opening-day rotation of Alex Meyer, Trevor May, Yohan Pino, Logan Darnell and Kris Johnson saw all but Meyer spend at least some time in Minnesota, and the loss of May and Pino down the stretch especially hurt. If Rochester had all five of them all season, I see almost no way that they miss the playoffs, but, again, those are the breaks that come with being a AAA franchise.

And, of course, there were injuries, both in the majors (which led to certain players getting called up to replace the injured Twins) and down in the minors. The loss of Meyer to injury early in the third-to-last game of the season may well have doomed the Red Wings, as it forced them to burn Mark Hamburger, who was expected to pitch a must-win game against Pawtuckett the next day. Instead, the Red Wings had to have Jose Berrios, a 20-year-old (albeit one of the top prospects in the system) pitch that game, where he was beaten up on in a loss that ended the Wings’ playoff chances.

Health problems below AAA also put a wrench in the Wings’ season. At the start of the year, it was considered possible that top prospects Miguel Sano and (although more of a longshot) Byron Buxton could join by the end of the year. Sano got hurt and missed the whole season, and Buxton got a concussion in his first game in AA (although by that point it was clear he was probably not going to end up in Rochester by the end of the year).

Speaking of prospects, I think it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that Rochester will ever see Kennys Vargas, who has gone .314 in 140 AB for the Twins since getting the call-up from AA. Prospects jumping from AA to MLB is less frequent in Minnesota’s system than it is in some others, but it does happen: Joe Mauer would never have played in Rochester if not for a injury so early in his rookie season in MLB, for example.

4. Of course, the above thing also can go the other way.

After the first month of the season, I don’t think anybody expected that Chris Colabello would be back in Rochester. He’d done great early in the year, after all, even winning AL Player of the Week at one point. Then he crashed back to earth and ended up spending more games in Rochester this season (61) than he would in Minneapolis (59). He did not receive a call-up at the end of the year and it’s almost certain that his time with Minnesota- and maybe even affiliated baseball in general- is at an end. But what must have been a horrible disappointment for Colabello was good news for the Red Wings, as he ended up leading the team in HRs. In his two seasons with the Red Wings, Colabello ended up batting .319 in 551 ABs, with 34 HRs and 114 RBIs. His OPS of .966 was spectacular. He will be missed, but hopefully he gets another shot at a permanent place in the Majors.

Similarly, Chris Herrmann was originally with the Twins to start the year, but ended up playing sizable time in Rochester, where he became one of the Wings’ best hitters. He’s now in Minnesota again as a September call-up.

The same sort of thing will no doubt happen next year, just as it happens every year.

5. The Mario-Coin Sound Is An Excellent Sound Effect For Scoring A Run

This season, when the Red Wings scored a run, the sound from Super Mario Brothers when you got a coin would play. They aren’t the only team that does it- I believe the Cleveland Indians do the same, and the Twins use the 1-Up Sound from SMB. It’s great, funny, and is also a good reminder that ultimately baseball is a game.

In fact, it even inspired me to try my hand at some artwork:

marioredwingsThat’s Mario in a Rochester Red Wings jersey. I’m not entirely sure why I made it, but I find it funny and I’m glad I made it. Let’s just hope they don’t change the sound effect next year, otherwise this will just be ridiculous.

 

…

So, the 2014 season is over in Rochester. It’s far too early to guess what the 2015 season may bring: Will Gene Glynn return as manager? Will some players be lost to free agency or by making the jump to the big leagues? Will next year by the year that Sano and/or Buxton make the jump to AAA?

Only time will tell.

 

2014 Rochester Red Wings in Review, Part 1, AKA “The IL North is Tough”

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If there is one lesson to be learned from the 2014 Rochester Red Wings, it is that minor league baseball is perhaps even more cruel than Major League Baseball, and perhaps even more unforgiving, at least to teams.

If you want to know what I mean, take a look at the standings of the International League this year. You’ll see on them a horrible unbalanced league, where one division clearly was better than the other two. That division was the IL North. Take a look at the near-final (there were one or two games still going on when I posted this) standings here:

Screen Shot 2014-09-01 at 4.04.16 PMNow, as you can see, the North simply owned the other divisions. The four teams with the best records in the league were in it (meaning the playoffs will consist of the first, second, fifth, and sixth best teams), and it’s two worst teams (Scranton and Lehigh Valley) would have been in a three-way fight with Gwinnett for second in another division (the South).

Sadly for the Red Wings, they were in the North. And, sadly, they were unable to win the Wild Card. To be sure, there were times this season where it could be said they blew their chance at the postseason: a horrible 0-for-Ohio road trip, a few blown games by the bullpen here and there, and some games where they got plenty of men on base but never got enough of them home. But, ultimately, the Red Wings were just unlucky victims of geography, stuck in what may have been the best division in all of baseball (relative to the rest of it’s league).

That said, despite the disappointing ending, it was a ton of fun, so on Wednesday, I’ll have a second part, a retrospective on the 2014 Red Wings season, complete with photos!

 

The Red Wings had one of the weirdest no-hitters ever

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It’s late so I can’t write too much, but, anyway, I was at the ballpark tonight. However, this story starts on July 24, when I was sitting on my couch watching the Rochester Red Wings play in Durham. Trevor May, who I discussed a few days ago, was pitching, and he was on that day, having given up no hits in the first three frames…. until the skies opened up and washed it away after three innings.

Cut to today (August 11), because Rochester wouldn’t be back to Durham, they were playing it here. Durham would still technically be the home team, and it would still be a nine-inning game, but it would be played in Rochester. Of course, Trevor May is now with Minnesota, so taking the mound instead was Logan Darnell…

It was still early, but here's how the scoreboard looked, complete with makeshift "Bulls" sign.

It was still early, but here’s how the scoreboard looked, complete with makeshift “Bulls” sign.

And a funny thing happened: Darnell was unhittable. Literally. He struck out five and got the final hitter, Justin Christian, to ground into a double play to seal the 3-0 no-hitter.

And then, of course, everybody went crazy:

Group hug!This was the third no-hitter I’ve ever seen in person (or, as somebody else pointed out to me, the second and two-thirds no-hitter, since I technically only saw just six of the nine innings). It also, however, is the weirdest. Consider how this technically was a road win for Rochester, despite being at home, where they have excelled all year. Consider how the person who started the no-hitter (May) is now in Minnesota, and the person who threw the final six innings (Darnell) had been called up AND sent down by Minnesota since the game began. Chris Colabello, who had an RBI single during the game, was also in Minnesota. The losing pitcher for Durham, Alex Colome, had been the winning pitcher in Durham’s win yesterday against Buffalo. Jayson Nix, who was the starting 2B for Durham when the game started, isn’t even in the Tampa Bay organization anymore.

(They'd removed the "Bulls" from the bottom, but hadn't wiped the board yet.)

(They’d removed the “Bulls” from the bottom, but hadn’t wiped the board yet.)

And, then, of course, there is the final strangeness that there was a whole other game to play. That was a interesting game, too, with the Wings squeaking out a 5-4 victory despite the rehabbing Wil Myers hitting a Grand Slam for Durham (leading to a hilarious Twitter exchange between Durham and their parent club), but… well… it was coming after a no-hitter that spanned weeks and states… so… well… better luck next time, game two of a double-header.

For the Minnesota Twins, Saturday is May Day

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Trevor May deals during a game in May in Rochester. Photo by Dan Glickman.

Trevor May deals during a game in May in Rochester. Photo by Dan Glickman.

For Minnesota Twins fans, it probably has been a question of “when”, not “if”, and it’s been a question they have been asking since April (probably earlier).

That question, of course, is: “When the hell will Trevor May get called up?” With every great start by him or his higher-ceiling-but-not-as-polished comrade, Alex Meyer, the cries would go louder and louder. Twinkie Town, perhaps the best (or at least most popular) Minnesota Twins blog on the web, wrote not one, but two facetious articles that implied that otherworldly powers beyond our understanding

The answer, at least for now, is “Saturday, August 9th.”

Yes, the day has come: Trevor May is going to pitch in the Major Leagues.

Having seen May all year this year (I’ve made a point of trying to get to as many of his starts as possible), May was acquired in the Ben Revere trade a few years back. In the past, apparently, he’s had control problems, and they still come up now and then, but in general he’s proven himself more than ready to try in the big leagues, posting a 2.93 ERA (4th best in the IL) and striking out 91 in a little over 95 innings. As I said earlier, he’s generally regarded as the lesser of the two pitching prospects who’ve helmed the Red Wings rotation (Alex Meyer, who has felt streaky at times this year), but he still could be something special, or at the very least be a good part of a rotation, especially one like the Twins’, which needs all the help it can get.

Then again, you never know with pitchers. Only time can tell.

GREAT MOMENTS OF 2013: AAA Baseball and a Miracle Comeback

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From August 4 of this year:
After Bobby Thomson‘s famous “Shot Heard Round the World”, Red Smith perhaps wrote the greatest lede (or lead, for those of you who didn’t major in journalism) in history:

Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.

A game in the International League in early August is a long way from the events that surrounded Thomson’s shot, of course, but last night there was another example of the can-you-believe-this nature of baseball that Smith paid tribute to in that lede, and another reminder that, as the great Yogi Berra once said, it ain’t over until it’s over.

For most of the game between the Rochester Red Wings (AAA Twins) and Syracuse Chiefs (AAA Nationals), it was a pitcher’s duel, as P.J. Walters of the Wings went 5.2 giving up only one earned run and Syracuse’s Caleb Clay doing the same for seven innings. The bullpens then brought it to extra innings. And it is there that the story truly begins. Although at the time, the crowd at Rochester’s Frontier Field must have thought it was an ending, as Luis Perdomo took the mound and then, after a quick first out, allowed Eury Perez to double, walked Jeff Kobernus and then hit Danny Espinosa with a pitch. Cody Eppley came in to replace him, but with runners already on base and no room for error, the Chiefs knocked in five runs off of him, although only two of them were earned.

And so, it headed to the bottom of the tenth, with the Wings down by five. Many of the 9,000+ in attendance were likely only still there due to the fireworks scheduled for post-game, but the fireworks would come early. The Chiefs brought in Cole Kimball, a high-ERA’d mop-up guy who they probably figured they could give some work to as they recorded the final outs of the game. Early on, it looked like maybe he’d do just that, getting two outs while allowing only two small hits, hits that everyone knew were meaningless unless something big happened.

And then, the wheels came off for Cole Kimball. A wild pitch got Eric Farris and James Beresford into scoring position, and then a single from Chris Parmelee got Farris home and left runners at the corners. However, again, that run was meaningless unless something else was going to happen.

Meanwhile, in the outfield, a group of Chinese fire-balloons from a local festival appeared on the horizon:

100_6012 copyAnd then, Kimball walked Deibinson Romero. Up to bat came Jeff Clement, a low-average but high-power hitter who has had stints with the Mariners and Pirates in the past, but who hadn’t been doing well lately, being without a homer since June. Now, though, the bases were loaded, but the tying run stood at the plate.

He worked a 3-1 count, and then, on the fifth pitch of the at-bat, he sent it deep into the night, a no-doubter. As soon as it was clear that it would be fair, the stadium erupted into a bonanza of high-fives, hugs and joyous screaming. Five runs down with one out left to survive, and the home team had still found a way to tie it up. Meanwhile, the Chinese Fire-Balloons faded over the Rochester Skyline.

But the inning was not over, although Kimball’s night was. Michael Crotta came in, only to walk Aaron Hicks and then give up a single to Josmil Pinto (Hicks wasn’t sent for home on the single, as he probably would have been dead meat at the plate). Crotta then was able to get Eric Farris- in his second AB of the inning- to ground out, ending the inning and sending it to 11.

The Chiefs threatened in the top of the 11th, only to have their would-be rally shushed by Shairon Martis, who came in to get the final out of the inning after the Chiefs got two men on. The Wings went down one-two-three in the bottom half. The Chiefs did the same in the top of the 12th.

And then, in the bottom of the 12th, after Chris Parmelee struck out against the Chiefs’ Jeff Mandel, Deibinson Romero walked. The speedy Eduardo Escobar was sent in as a pinch-runner. And to the plate came the hero of earlier in the night: Jeff Clement.

And again, he worked a 3-1 count.

And then, again, he sent a ball into right. It wasn’t a home run, it was just a good shot into the corner. It was close at the plate, but the throw was off, and Escobar came in to score the walk-off run of the miracle victory.

Down by five with one out left in the tenth to a walk-off in the 12th. Only in baseball do you see things like this. And when you see such a magical game, you think that Red Smith was right: only the utterly impossible can ever be plausible again.

100_6014 copy

The Roller Coaster Red Wings head to the Postseason

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When announcing lineups, the Rochester Red Wings often play “Love Rollercoaster”. It fits this season, as the AAA Twins affiliate seemed to be on one that had highs, lows, loops, corkscrews and no shortage of screaming and yelling. And now, after a blowout 13-3 victory on the final day of the season and a stunning 1-0 extra-inning defeat by the Norfolk Tides (AAA Orioles), the Wings now have made the playoffs for the first time since 2006 by virtue of holding a tie-breaker against Norfolk.

It was by no means a sure thing. Then again, there was very little “sure” about this season. The Wings started 2-11, they were in last place as late as May 29, they were in first later in the year, only to lose both that lead and also seemingly the wild card in a late skid after their best player (Chris Colabello) and best pitcher (Andrew Albers) were called up… and then, finally, at the end, they were able to pick themselves up and get to the playoffs, with a little luck.

(Go below the jump for more)

Continue reading →

Frontier Panoramas

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I went to the Rochester Red Wings game last night, and took some cool panorama photos of the game. There may be some irregularities in the photos due to the fact they are stitched-together combinations of separate ones, but they are still nice.  Click the images below to see them bigger:

From high-up behind Home Plate. the farthest you can go while still being in the fan seats.

From high-up behind Home Plate. the farthest you can go while still being in the fan seats.

Closer to Home Plate

Closer to Home Plate

From left field, during the Seventh Inning rendition of "God Bless America".

From left field, during the Seventh Inning rendition of “God Bless America”.

 

 

The Art of Fiction Is Dead: AAA Baseball and a Miracle Comeback

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After Bobby Thomson‘s famous “Shot Heard Round the World”, Red Smith perhaps wrote the greatest lede (or lead, for those of you who didn’t major in journalism) in history:

Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.

A game in the International League in early August is a long way from the events that surrounded Thomson’s shot, of course, but last night there was another example of the can-you-believe-this nature of baseball that Smith paid tribute to in that lede, and another reminder that, as the great Yogi Berra once said, it ain’t over until it’s over.

For most of the game between the Rochester Red Wings (AAA Twins) and Syracuse Chiefs (AAA Nationals), it was a pitcher’s duel, as P.J. Walters of the Wings went 5.2 giving up only one earned run and Syracuse’s Caleb Clay doing the same for seven innings. The bullpens then brought it to extra innings. And it is there that the story truly begins. Although at the time, the crowd at Rochester’s Frontier Field must have thought it was an ending, as Luis Perdomo took the mound and then, after a quick first out, allowed Eury Perez to double, walked Jeff Kobernus and then hit Danny Espinosa with a pitch. Cody Eppley came in to replace him, but with runners already on base and no room for error, the Chiefs knocked in five runs off of him, although only two of them were earned.

And so, it headed to the bottom of the tenth, with the Wings down by five. Many of the 9,000+ in attendance were likely only still there due to the fireworks scheduled for post-game, but the fireworks would come early. The Chiefs brought in Cole Kimball, a high-ERA’d mop-up guy who they probably figured they could give some work to as they recorded the final outs of the game. Early on, it looked like maybe he’d do just that, getting two outs while allowing only two small hits, hits that everyone knew were meaningless unless something big happened.

And then, the wheels came off for Cole Kimball. A wild pitch got Eric Farris and James Beresford into scoring position, and then a single from Chris Parmelee got Farris home and left runners at the corners. However, again, that run was meaningless unless something else was going to happen.

Meanwhile, in the outfield, a group of Chinese fire-balloons from a local festival appeared on the horizon:

100_6012 copyAnd then, Kimball walked Deibinson Romero. Up to bat came Jeff Clement, a low-average but high-power hitter who has had stints with the Mariners and Pirates in the past, but who hadn’t been doing well lately, being without a homer since June. Now, though, the bases were loaded, but the tying run stood at the plate.

He worked a 3-1 count, and then, on the fifth pitch of the at-bat, he sent it deep into the night, a no-doubter. As soon as it was clear that it would be fair, the stadium erupted into a bonanza of high-fives, hugs and joyous screaming. Five runs down with one out left to survive, and the home team had still found a way to tie it up. Meanwhile, the Chinese Fire-Balloons faded over the Rochester Skyline.

But the inning was not over, although Kimball’s night was. Michael Crotta came in, only to walk Aaron Hicks and then give up a single to Josmil Pinto (Hicks wasn’t sent for home on the single, as he probably would have been dead meat at the plate). Crotta then was able to get Eric Farris- in his second AB of the inning- to ground out, ending the inning and sending it to 11.

The Chiefs threatened in the top of the 11th, only to have their would-be rally shushed by Shairon Martis, who came in to get the final out of the inning after the Chiefs got two men on. The Wings went down one-two-three in the bottom half. The Chiefs did the same in the top of the 12th.

And then, in the bottom of the 12th, after Chris Parmelee struck out against the Chiefs’ Jeff Mandel, Deibinson Romero walked. The speedy Eduardo Escobar was sent in as a pinch-runner. And to the plate came the hero of earlier in the night: Jeff Clement.

And again, he worked a 3-1 count.

And then, again, he sent a ball into right. It wasn’t a home run, it was just a good shot into the corner. It was close at the plate, but the throw was off, and Escobar came in to score the walk-off run of the miracle victory.

Down by five with one out left in the tenth to a walk-off in the 12th. Only in baseball do you see things like this. And when you see such a magical game, you think that Red Smith was right: only the utterly impossible can ever be plausible again.

100_6014 copy

(MVP of Yesterday will be written later today, for those wondering.)

Link

Another summary/picture article on the Rochester Red Wings is up at Twinkie Town.