RailCats Lose 13-1

20-32

6th in the East 

1. For the 3rd straight game, the RailCats gave up 3 or more runs. Andrés Díaz gave up 5 runs on 5 hits and 1 error. Now I can’t fully blame Díaz for this inning. Jabari Henry hit a ball to right field near the foul line, and the ball fell in between Del Valle, González, and Valera. No one seemed to communicate who had the ball, which led to an errant throw by Basabe, who had to make a tough play on a ball Rehwaldt hit. I believe Olivier should have held the ball. But it didn’t stop there; Hart hit a ball down the 3rd base line, and on a natural grass field, the ball would have gone foul. However, at the Bird Cage, it’s artificial turf, so it stayed fair. Then the hit parade started, and the Canaries would score 5.

2. In The BirdCage, Andres Diaz gave up a 2-run home run and 2 hits. He also gave up a hit off the top of the wall, which in any other park would have been a fly out. He gave up 4 more runs on 4 hits.

3. The RailCats’ offense had a stretch of three straight innings where the lead-off hitter would hit a single and the next batter would ground into a double play.

4. The RailCats finally scored one run in the top of the 5th when Guillermo Quintana hit a ground RBI out that scored Marcos Gonzalez.

5. Andres Diaz had a rough start to forget. I felt he was going to have a bounce-back game. Since playing with the RailCats, he hasn’t had back-to-back bad appearances. Well, that ended today when he pitched 4 innings, giving up 11 runs on 13 hits, 2 walks, and striking out 3. Diaz never really recovered from the 1st inning, which could have been better without the mental lapses that seem to be popping up more in recent games.

6. Tonight was the first appearance by Franklin Perez since June 16th when he suffered an injury. He had a really nice outing, going 2.1 innings without allowing a run. He did walk 2, but he struck out 1. If he could turn things around in the second half, he could be in the running for the RailCats player of the year. (new award I will take credit for)

7. Looking at the players that continued or started a hit/on-base streak: Guillermo extended his hit streak with a single in the 3rd. Gio Diaz extended his on-base streak to 5 games with a single in the 4th. Marcos Gonzalez started a 3-game hitting streak with a single in the 5th. Jackson Valera took his hit streak to 5 with a single in the 2nd.

8. The RailCats grounded into 4 double plays with the leadoff batter getting on base. The offense scored 1 run on 5 hits, 1 walk, and struck out 7 times. All hits were singles and Jose Contreras was also hit by a pitch.

9. Looking at the defense/pitching: The RailCats would have given up 13 runs on 17 hits, 6 walks, and would have struck out 7 batters. Olivier Basabe would have been the only RailCats player to commit an error, and that would have come in the 1st inning on a throw to 1st.

10. The Railcats will drop to 20-33 on the season. They are now on a 3-game losing streak and aren’t trending in the right direction. Being outscored 23 to 2 in the last 2 games won’t win you very many games. This game was the typical pitching gives up a lot of runs in 1 or 2 innings, and the offense has to try to climb out of the hole, which they try to do with one swing of the bat instead of trying to work the pitchers and chip away slowly.

11. Bonus: Can we give Andrew Mild a huge round of applause! He went through 2 back-to-back blowout games and still brought the energy and spirit as if it were a close game. The man with all the stories!