Ex-Ohio State star Luebke gets family, Dayton ovation
DAYTON — A cadre of fans from Maria Stein rooted hard for Cory Luebke as he pitched the second game for Fort Wayne Tuesday night against the Dayton Dragons.
They and the rest of the fans at Fifth Third Field gave the rookie left-hander an ovation when he was taken from the game with two outs in the sixth inning. Luebke, a former star at Marion Local High School and Ohio State, left with a 3-0 lead after allowing just four hits — all singles — and two walks. He struck out six.
It goes into a Q&A from there. This being Ohio and Luebke being a Buckeye, here is how that Q&A wrapped up:
Q: Will you go to any OSU football games this fall?
A: Sure. I'll miss the opener with Youngstown State, but I'll be able to see the games after that. I won't be able to get my student tickets, but my cousin, Todd Boeckman, is a quarterback on the team, so I think I'll be able to get tickets.
I would think so.
For some reason, the Everett Herald isn't posting their AquaSox game stories on the day after games. I almost missed this from the 21st...
Back in the swing (and miss)
It seemed the Everett AquaSox had turned a corner.
The Everett hitters had changed their approach at the plate. They'd begun taking more pitches, they were avoiding swinging at pitches out of the strike zone and they'd curtailed the strikeouts, thus pulling themselves out of an ugly losing skid.
However, Everett's newfound bat control proved short lived as the AquaSox reverted to their whiffing ways Monday night.
Everett had yet another futile day at the plate, striking out 17 times as the Sox fell 6-1 to the Spokane Indians on a wet evening at Everett Memorial Stadium.
That leads into this item...
Halman breaks out
Gregory Halman is getting himself back in the groove.
After suffering through a miserable slump, Halman busted out in a big way, homering in three straight games going into Tuesday night.
"I'm feeling good," Halman said. "I went through a bad slump and I'm just trying to get back to what I was doing before that. I'm still struggling a little bit, but it's coming back."
Everett's center fielder and leading hitter was batting a robust .352 on Aug. 3. But he fell into an awful slump. Going into Saturday's game at Eugene he was 1-for-his-past-23 with 13 strikeouts, seeing his average dip below .300 for the first time since the first week of the season.
No, the item at the bottom of this story...
Record pace: Everett's prodigious strikeout totals have the Sox threatening the Northwest League record for strikeouts in a season.
Going into Tuesday night's game the Sox had fanned 630 times in 60 games, a rate of 10.5 per game. The league record for strikeouts in a season is 738, set by Everett in 1996. Therefore, to break the record Everett would need to strike out just 109 times in its final 16 games, a rate of 6.8 per game.
On Tuesday and Wednesday (both wins by the way), Everett struck out a total of 14 times.
Look! An ex-Rattler was the silver lining in the M's loss at Minnesota yesterday
M's Notebook Rowland-Smith only bright spot
There weren't many bright spots for the Mariners on a day the game was over in the first inning.
But left-handed reliever Ryan Rowland-Smith at least spared some bullpen arms and perhaps opened some eyes Wednesday afternoon by tossing four hitless innings with six strikeouts. The work by Rowland-Smith, who replaced starter Miguel Batista after only two innings in the 8-4 defeat to Minnesota, was the longest of the season by the 24-year-old product of Newcastle, Australia.
"I just went out there, tried to get ahead in the count and enjoy myself -- try to have fun," Rowland-Smith said after his first hitless outing in 13 this season. "It doesn't come around too often."
There is a little about RRS's Olympic experience in 2004. No mention that the Twins selected Rowland-Smith in the Rule 5 draft a few years ago and returned him to the Mariners.
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