4/24/2019 0 Comments INAUGURAL GAME AT SEGRA STADIUMBY: MATTHEW PRESLARIn 2017 we stumbled on the Greeneville Astros, a Rookie League club based in East Tennessee. That fortunate accident birthed our love for minor league baseball and our appreciation for the Houston Astros Organization. 2017 was also a breakthrough year for the entire franchise. At the major league level, years of frustration were erased when Houston finally won the World Series. That year also marked when the organization pulled their Advanced A affiliation out of the California League and became an expansion team across the country in the Carolina League.
The team picked the city of Fayetteville, NC as home. Fayetteville hasn’t hosted affiliated minor league baseball since the Cape Fear Crocs (Low A, South Atlantic League) moved north after the 2000 season. The Astros have signed a 30 year lease with the city and are the owners of the franchise. For two years, the now Fayetteville Woodpeckers played as the Buies Creek Astros at nearby Campbell University. Finally, the home of the Woodpeckers was to open in 2019. With our increasing relationship for the entire organization and our gratefulness for their investment in North Carolina, we cleared our schedule to take part in the INAUGURAL OPENING DAY.
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BY: MATTHEW PRESLARAn impromptu free Saturday afternoon led us to check around the area for our first game of the season. The best choice was a return to Winston-Salem to see the Dash. The Dash are in the A Advanced Carolina League and one of the three Chicago White Sox affiliates within an hour and a half of our home (Low A Kannapolis, AAA Charlotte).
While we always keep an eye on the promotions, Winston-Salem was an early season destination because two highly ranked prospects were surprisingly assigned there out of spring training, Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal. These two position players are #4 and #5 prospects in the organization and top 44 in all of baseball according to MLB Pipeline. Scouting grades, early season statistics, and biographical information for each is listed below. 4/4/2019 0 Comments A RARE DAY OF PERFECTIONBY: MATTHEW PRESLAR A pitcher throwing a perfect game is one the most rare feats in all of sports. To complete a perfect game, a pitcher must retire each and every batter faced from start of game to finish. In most professional and college games (9 innings x 3 outs), this requires winning 27 consecutive battles with opposing batters, all the while being at the mercy of your fielders and umpires to be perfect on your behalf as well. Per Wikipedia: “Over the 140 years of Major League Baseball history, and over 210,000 games played, there have been 23 official perfect games by the current definition. No pitcher has ever thrown more than one... By contrast, there have been spans of 23 and 33 consecutive seasons in which not a single perfect game was thrown.” These statistics show how rare it is to pitch a perfect game. In fact, in Major League Baseball, there have been 24 cycles recorded (a batter hitting a single, double, triple, and home run in a single game) since the last Perfect Game in August, 2012.
At this time I want to introduce you to Jake Kuchmaner. > READ JAKE'S ECU BIO HERE |
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