New Hampshire Wallops Reading 16-5

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Most of us who saw RHP Zach Stewart pitch last season really thought he was going to walk through AA and wind up pushing for an MLB spot by the end of May, but reality has set in and it seems clear that Zach will need some work in getting settled as a starter before that can happen. His line today was:

6 IP/ 7 hits/ 5 ER/ 2 BB/ 1 K/ 1 HR

He now has a 20.1 IP, 7 BB, 13 Ks and a 5.75 ERA overall this  season and has been erratic – 1 great start, 1 horrible, 1 great start, 1 horrible…. so the talent is there, it just needs to be consistent because those stats are far from the 1.89 ERA he put up last year in 105 IP with 32 BB and 93 Ks. He’ll continue to work things out in AA for a while yet it seems.

For those who were curious to see whether the Jays would land Canadian Phillipe Aumont in the Doc Halladay trade, he was Zach’s opponent in this one and had a horrible start. He would up leaving after only 1.2 IP after giving up 4 ER on 5 walks and 3 hits. Well, he was just the first of many pitchers to have issues on the day for Reading, as they gave up 15 hits, 8 walks, and 16 runs in this one.

Adam Calderone (.289) and Jonathan Diaz (.286) each had 3 hits on the day while Callix Crabbe (.211) and Brian Jeroloman (.350) provided the power with their 2nd and 3rd HRs of the season respectively. Crabbe also added 2 SBs. The New Hampshire bats obviously had a wonderful day against some pretty decent pitching as all starters except Adam Loewen got on base more than once with a hit and walk as a minimum.

New Hampshire are now 16 and 7 on the season (.696), and stand 2 games ahead of Binghamton. It’s a great start to the year for the AA gang and indicates just how much talent Jays fans have to look forward to in the near future!