Contemplating the Crawdads

(pictured, David Paisano)

The Crawdads played their first home game in almost two weeks last night. Hickory went 4-4 on the trip that took them through Ohio and New Jersey.

Now that we have 33 games in the books, let’s look at how things are shaping up, shotgun style:

-CF David Paisano has his average up to .305. His on base percentage of .349 would be higher if David could draw a few more walks (he only has 5 walks on the season). Regardless, the numbers indicate a player who has improved at the plate since his season in Spokane last year (.262 BA, .332 OBP).

-With two more hits in last night’s game, Bianucci is hitting .366 with an OPS of 1.095. His bat is too good for this league.

-Matt West, who started the season slowly, is hitting .298 over his last 84 at-bats. The third baseman still leads the team with 10 errors in 32 games played.

-Clark Murphy is struggling less. That’s probably the most positive we can be about the 19-year-old’s start. It took Murphy 9 games to get earn his first BB. The first baseman’s start of the season could be defined as “swing and a miss”…not a lot of contact, not much discipline, and a ton of strikeouts. After the slow start, Clark has 10 walks on the season and has the average up to .235. No homeruns yet and only 5 extra-base hits total. His error total has held steady for a while now. I am interested to see how he looks in the field now after appearing like Bambi on ice earlier this season.

-Font: 24 innings, 25 K’s, 16 BB’s, 17 Hits. Allowing .202 opposing batting average. Manager Hector Ortiz said he was throwing the offspeed stuff for strikes last night. This fella is good.

-Perez: 26 innings, 31k’s, 9 BB’s, 17 Hits. Allowing .187 opposing batting average. Only one homerun allowed in those 26 innings.