Jays Minors Recap: SP Mills, Perez, Page, Shopshire All Shine

In AAA, Brad Mills must have had the same cereal as Ricky Romero, because the Ks were coming in close to 2 per inning for him on Tuesday against Fresno. Unlike Romero, Mills did allow more than 1 hit per inning, 7 in 5.1 innings, but he was also able to manage 9 Ks within those 5.1 IP and only walked 1 batter. Mills threw 97 pitches, 65 of these for strikes.

While Ricky Romero was mowing down White Sox hitters like they were from little league, Luis Perez (AA) was doing his best to emulate the performance in AA New Hampshire’s tilt against Reading. The only hit he allowed in the game through 7 innings was to Domonic Brown, while he also walked 2 in the game. Normally this performance would rival others in the organization on any given day as the best performance, but it just so happened to be an exceptional day for the Jays so it just seems par for the course.

Perez now has a 0.00 ERA while Mills has a 0.79 ERA, and both earned their first wins of the season. You have to believe Jays management is feeling a little pitching drunk right now, as all of their pitchers seem to be firing on all cylinders. Even the pen was very effective Tuesday in AAA, as Jesse Carlson, Sean Henn, and Rommie Lewis (3rd save) gave Mills strong relief over their 3.2 shut out innings and I mentioned the Antolin outing above.

HiA Dunedin – Ryan Page tried to match the efforts of Romero, Mills, and Perez, but fell a little bit short for Dunedin despite doing very well. He pitched 6.1 innings, allowed 6 hits, got 1 K, and only allowed 2 ER.

Ryan Shopshire (LoA), meanwhile, has a great day as well, going 6 strong innings while allowing only 3 hits, 3 walks, and getting 4 Ks while only allowing 1 ER. Dustin Antolin actually got the win after he came on to bail Ryan out in the 7th inning and finished the game himself with 3 shut out innings where he didn’t allow a hit, a walk, and had 2 Ks. Those are both great showings from these 2 pitchers, and if Antolin keeps this up he could get stretched out to start. He hasn’t given up a hit or a walk in 5 innings pitched this season.

Offensively for the AAA, AA, and LoA levels:

• AAA – Brett Wallace went 2 for 3 for LV, raising his average to .278
• AAA – Jarret Hoffpauir, Jesus Merchan, JP Arencibia, and Christian Colonel were the only other LV hitters to get a hit
• AA – NH hitters, meanwhile, got 9 hits overall, with David Cooper and Jonathan Diaz leading the way with 2 each
• AA – Darin Mastroianni (1 for 5) and Eric Thames (1 for 4) each stole a base
• AA – Jonathan Jaspe and Calix Crabbe each hit a triple while no home runs were hit by NH
• HiA – Brian Van Kirk was the hero for Dunedin as he ht a HR and stole a base after going 2 for 4 in the game
• HiA – Yan Gomes also pitched in with a 2 for 4 day
• LoA – Oliver Dominguez hit his 1st HR of the season, went 2 for 4, and stole 2 bases – what a spark plug
• LoA – Bradley Glenn hit a key pinch hit HR in the 9th inning that gave Lansing a sweep over Great Lakes

All-in-all, Tuesday was one very encouraging pitching day throughout the organization’s levels! All teams seem to be getting the wins they deserve, and a winning attitude is taking root at all levels. Great stuff for the Jays organization.