BlueClaws Win SAL

Your Lakewood BlueClaws are the 2009 South Atlantic League champions. This is their second championship in four years as they beat the Greenville Drive (Red Sox). Korey Noles was the winning pitcher in the clinching game as he went seven strong innings to bring the John H. Moss Cup back to Lakewood, NJ.

Lakewood held Kannapolis Intimidators (White Sox), which owned the league's best overall regular-season record, to two runs in a two-game sweep of the Northern Division finals, then limited Greenville to six runs over four games in the Championship Series.

The Single A team is led by one of the Phillies' other top OF prospects, Anthony Gose. He is their lead off man and spark for offense. In the first inning, he led off the game with a single, took second on a sacrifice, stole third, and then scored on a ground out. That sounds a lot like Jimmy Rollins.

There are quite a bit of notable Phillies who are alumni to this team. They include Cole Hamels, JA Happ, Ryan Howard, Kyle Kendrick, Carlos Ruiz, and Shane Victorino.

News 8/24

Dobbs on DL: article

The Phillies had placed Greg Dobbs on the 15-day DL yesterday with a right calf injury. He will be replaced by Miguel Cairo. Cairo is back on the Phillies since being optioned back in May.

I was going to post this yesterday but was busy all day.

Myers to Rehab Today: article

Brett Myers will make his first rehab start today with Lakewood. He was originally scheduled to pitch yesterday but the game was rained out. He made one appearance with Clearwater, striking out the side and allowing two hits.

News 7/17/09

Howard belts 200th: article

Ryan Howard became the fastest player in MLB history to hit 200 home runs last night as he took Chris Volstad deep in the sixth to give the Phillies a 4-0 lead in which they won. It was his 658th career game, 48 fewer than Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner (706 games).

"That's pretty cool," said Howard, who was able to retrieve the historic ball. "It'll hit me later on. I'll kind of come down a bit later. It'll be something I can look back on and just kind of cherish a little bit."

Taylor called up to AAA: article

One of the Phillies top prospects, Michael Taylor, was called up to AAA Lehigh yesterday. In AA Reading, he was batting .333 with 15 homers and 65 RBI's,

"It was the right time," said Steve Noworyt, Philadelphia's director of minor league operations, in regards to the Taylor promotion. "If you look at the numbers he put up last year at Clearwater and then he came here and never looked back. Let's let it go now and see what happens."

If you look at what he's done over the last two years, he deserves it. He's never really slumped and right now there is no rush. He'll be a step away. If he does well, great. If he has to be a repeater next year, so be it. But it will be a nice chance to see what he can do for a month and a half."

Knapp placed on DL: article

Phillies prospect Jason Knapp was placed on the 7-day DL with shoulder fatigue. For Class A Lakewood, he is 2-7 with a 4.01 ERA but has struck out 111 and walked just 39 in 85 1/3 innings. He gives up a lot of runs but he does shut down hitters too.