It's the Clip Joint After All

Cody Allen

The Clips are off in Rochester, New York taking on the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.  How can a team with a slash and a hyphen in its name being hosting opponents not only in a different city, but a different state?  As with most things, we can blame the Yankees.  The Bronx Bombers are remodeling PNC Field for their AAA franchise.  Set to open in 2013, the $43.3mil renovations will be ostentatious enough for even the redest-head stepson of the Evil Empire.  Thus, SWB will pretty much be barnstorm this year, playing most of their home games at the Red Wings park with other taking place in Batavia, NY; Buffalo, NY; Syracuse, NY; Allentown, PA and Pawtucket, RI.  Wowza. 

On the field, Columbus (17-16) ran through the buzz saw of the Yanks top two pitching prospects (Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos) earlier in the week before blowing a 3-1 lead in the 8th and losing in the 10th tonight.  It was straight up waste of a strong start from Corey Kluber (3-2, 2.58) who tossed six innings of 1 run ball.  Cody Allen (3.86) suffered the blown save and some growing pains after surrendering a two run bomb to former A's stud Jack Cust.  Then, in his second inning of work, Jeremy Accardo (0-2, 2.76) gave up a lead off double in the 10th and got all the way to two outs before allowing the walk-off winner.

At the plate, Jose Lopez (.579, no, really) has taken the IL by storm.  With 3 hits (+ an RBI) Thursday night, Lopez has posted three 3+ hit games in his first 5 AAA games of the season.  Jose hit .400 with 9 home runs in 32 PCL games last year.  Chad Huffman (.292) also had 3 hits, including a double, and drove home a run himself.  Outside of Lopez, Andy LaRoche (.250) is likely the Clippers hottest hitter.  Two more hits (both doubles) against the Yanks raised Andy's May average to .355.  Matt LaPorta (.336) is headed in the other direction.  Matty is just 4-for-21 (.190) on the road trip with one measly RBI.  On the season, he's batting .397 with all 9 of his long balls and 20 of his 21 RBI at home, compared to .255 on the road.

Also of note is that Scott Barnes has been moved to the bullpen.  While relief is a less glamorous role, the organization is still very high on Scottie.  Don't tell anyone, but the word on the street is that the upper brass has no faith in Tony Sipp's effectiveness or Rafael Perez's health.  Therefore, given the Tribe's early success, they felt it prudent to get Barnes acclimated to a short role that me might have to fill at the big league level later in the season.  After a very shaky relief debut, Scott struck out the side in his only inning on Tuesday.

The Clip show moves on to Pawtucket tomorrow with Chris Seddon (3-1, 4.18) taking the hill.

Other Minor Points of Interest --

Akron
Jared Goedert singled home a run for the Aeros.  On the season, he's hitting .380 with a 1.005 OPS.  Chun Chen (.298) had 3 hits, including a double, but has a .798 OPS thanks to mashing just one home run.  Bryan Price (2.84) bounced back nicely from his roughest outing of the year.  Price took the loss after surrendering 3 earned on May 4th, took a week off and then threw 2 scoreless tonight.

Carolina
The Mudcats dropped a double header to Myrtle Beach, scoring a combined 2 runs.  Despite going 0-for-6 in the set, Tony Wolters (.168) is batting .269 in May after a .130 April

Lake County
Alex Lavisky (.232) cracked a solo homer to account for the Captains only run, but is batting just .190 in May with 8 strikeouts in 21 AB's.

Roll Tribe.

Cheers.