Apr
29
Catching Up…
Filed Under Augusta GreenJackets, Duke Welker, Greenville Drive
Unfortunately, I have been busy with school for the last 10 days or so with relatively little time for my passion of blogging. I’m almost finished with the current semester, so I should have some free time for blogging baseball with the Hickory Crawdads again.
My last post dealt with the some hitting statistics for the Crawdads and the pending arrival of local favorite Madison Bumgarner on the mound with the Augusta GreenJackets in Hickory. Let me start my catch-up with some notes about that game…
Madison took the field with a standing ovation in Hickory to a crowd of 4,800+ fans. This is one of, if not THE, largest crowd I have seen in L.P. Frans Stadium during the time I have been photographing games here. I was curious to see how well Madison would pitch in front of his hometown crowd because his three starts prior to this game were not stellar by any means. He came to Hickory carrying a 7.7 ERA. As far as I’m concerned, this is not a bad number for a rookie pitcher. I have seen lots of first-round studs on the farm get shelled their first few times up, and Madison got a small taste of that during his first outing with Augusta as he gave up 5 earned runs in his first 3 frames with the GreenJackets. This, however, wasn’t to be the case in his first appearance in front of his hometown crowd. I guess all I can really say is that Madison pitched 6 1/3 innings of 2-hit baseball with 8 strikeouts against the Hickory Crawdads. He was still going strong at the 6 1/3 inning mark, but he had probably reached his pitch count limit. He tipped his hat to the crowd as he left the field to another standing ovation. Bumgarner picked up a win in Hickory, but it was the only win the GreenJackets would get against the Crawdads in this 3-game series.
During the Augusta series, Hickory had a visit from Pittsburgh Pirates Director of Player Development, Kyle Stark…
Following the Augusta series, the ‘Dads went on the road for three games in Greenville against the Drive. We won the first game 7-2, lost the second 10-6, and won the third 13-6 to claim that series. Hickory currently sits in second place in the South Atlantic League Northern Division with a 14-12 (.538) record, three games behind the Lake County Captains. Hickory leaves Greenville to head to Savannah for a 4-game series with the Sand Gnats before returning back home on Saturday, May 3 for an 8-game home stand.
My last update on Duke Welker said that he’s still rehabbing a sprained ankle down in Bradenton, but he’s looking strong and will make another start or possibly two down there before returning to Hickory.
Matt McSwain was promoted to Lynchburg this week. We picked up a couple more pitchers, and I’m not sure exactly who but one name was a familiar one…
Wanell Macia spent the better part of the last three seasons in Hickory as an outfielder before being promoted to Lynchburg late in the 2007 season. Apparently he has been converted to a pitcher during the off season, and he showed up on the mound as a reliever for the ‘Dads in Greenville last night. He pitched 3 innings and gave up 3 earned runs from the pen to get his stats rolling in Hickory again with a 9.00 ERA.
I’ll try to get the team roster on this blog updated with the new people and the transaction information over the weekend. There are several new faces that I haven’t photographed yet, but I’ll get those when the guys return to town next week…
John M. Setzler, Jr.
(the guy with the camera)