Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Freshman Southpaw Sends Govs Packing with 8-0 Loss

The Austin Peay Governors had absolutely no answer for freshman left-hander Mike Minor (pictured below), well that is, except for strikeouts. Minor picked up his first collegiate victory yesterday pitching EIGHT scoreless innings, striking out eight and walking one. Cody Crowell came on in the ninth and blanked the Govs in their final at bat to complete the Commies first shutout of the year.
After the game, Coach Corbin praised his young arm, “For a young kid, that's as good a game as I've seen pitched. …he's similar in his approach to pitching as Sowers (Jeremy), probably. Whether he ever turns out to be that, we'll see."

Coach Corbin was referring to Jeremy Sowers who was an All-American at Vanderbilt and drafted 6th by the Cleveland Indians in 2004. He made his Major League debut on June 25, 2006, striking out Adam Dunn to earn his strike out…and then promptly gave up a home run to Ken Griffy Jr.: Welcome to the Majors. In his first season with the Indians, he went 7-4 with a 3.57 ERA and had 35 strikeouts. Here is a nifty tidbit from SI, “Only Roger Clemens had a better ERA than Indians SP Jeremy Sowers' 2.72 from July 22 through the end of last season.”

Back to yesterday’s game; Pedro Alvarez went off. He flirted with the cycle, going 4-5 with two doubles. In his fourth at-bat, after already hitting a single, double, and triple (in that order), he flied out to deep left field, just missing the cycle. His next at-bat, he roped an opposite field double that hit the wall in flight, again, just missing the cycle. He also had two RBI.

Other batters that contributed with RBIs were: Dominic de la Osa, Andrew Giobbi, Ryan Davis (who had two hits), and Brad French. Brian Harris had two hits as well to cap the 14-hit Vanderbilt barrage yesterday at Hawkins Field.

The Commies raised their team average to .351. Pedro Alvarez leads the team with a .458 average and .958 SL%, followed by Sunday’s hero, Ryan Flaherty’s .429 average and .690 SL%. Minor dropped his ERA to 1.84 and is now second on the team in strikeouts with 18. Opposing batters are only hitting .122 against him.

The Gov’s ‘ace’ only lasted 2.1 innings and gave up 4 runs (1 unearned) on 6 hits and walked one. He faced 15 batters. Their relief wasn’t much better, each lasting no more then 2 innings, while all Gov relief pitchers gave up at least one run on 2 hits.

With the win, the Commies move to 11-0 on the season while the Govs fall to 2-2. The Commies finish up their 11-game home stand this weekend when they host Xavier. The series starts Friday at 4 pm.

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