Righty Green spotless in Whitecaps loss

Chad Green has now made two Thursday starts since joining Class A West Michigan. The difference has been night and day -- literally.

One week after giving up four earned runs over four innings in an evening contest against Dayton, the Tigers right-hander struck out seven and allowed four hits over seven scoreless frames Thursday afternoon in an eventual 3-0 loss to Wisconsin. He threw 74 pitches -- 54 for of them for strikes -- and did not walk a batter.

The difference between the two starts was immediately apparent Thursday. Last week, Green plunked Beau Amaral to start his year, allowed the Dragons leadoff man to steal second and score on a sac fly and later gave up a two-run homer to Sebastian Elizalde -- all in the first inning. Against Wisconsin, he struck out Omar Garcia on three pitches -- all looking -- to start his outing and was a Francisco Castillo bunt single away from a perfect opening frame. He needed just 12 pitches (10 strikes).

With a four-seamer, two-seamer and slider in his arsenal as well as a rarely used changeup, Green noted that the slider was the offering most important to his early success Thursday.

"I think the main thing was my breaking ball," he said. "I was able to throw it where I wanted, and that gave me the confidence to go with it whenever. In Dayton, it was just all over the place and I had to rely more on my fastball. Today, having that other pitch was huge."

Green's most dominant stretch came from innings two through five. Starting with the second out of the first inning, the 22-year-old right-hander retired 14 consecutive batters before Angel Ortega's leadoff double in the sixth broke up the streak.

"I was in a pretty good rhythm right away there," said the Whitecaps starter. "I was getting right after them with first-pitch strikes, and more than often than not, that's going to give you a huge advantage. So I'd get strike one and just go from there, and it worked out pretty well."

The numbers back up Green's first-pitch strike claim. He threw first-pitch strikes to 15 of the 25 Timber Rattlers he faced. Given that advantage, he was able to keep 18 of those 25 at-bats to three pitches or fewer. What's more, when Wisconsin batters were making contact off Green, it wasn't loud. He recorded 12 groundouts on the afternoon compared to just one flyout -- a marked improvement from the Dayton start when he notched only three groundouts and six flyouts.

This is only the second year that the Illinois native is a starter since he began his University of Louisville career in 2010.

He showed promise out of the bullpen as a freshman (1.93 ERA) and sophomore (2.70 ERA) before the Cardinals made him their Friday-night starter last season. His stock rose from there after he went 10-4 with a 2.42 ERA, 74 strikeouts and 27 walks in 18 starts (104 1/3 innings). The right-hander was named Second Team All-Big East and was drafted in the 11th round by the Tigers last June. Upon signing, he finished his Cardinals career as the school's all-time leader in career ERA (2.38).

Having both a starter and a reliever, Green has settled back into the Whitecaps' six-man rotation, where he hopes to produce more outings like Thursday's. Well, this Thursday's anyway.

"When you're coming out of the bullpen, you need to have everything on right away," he said. "When you're starting, you have some time [before the game] to get into rhythm and get into your groove early. That's been a big thing for me."

Timber Rattlers second baseman Francisco Castillo singled off Whitecaps reliever Matt Davenport (0-1) to lead off the ninth Thursday and scored on a Jose Pena double to break the 0-0 deadlock. Catcher Clint Coulter added two insurance runs with an RBI double off Montreal Robinson later in the frame.

Wisconsin starter Tristan Archer did not factor in the decision after allowing two hits and three walks in five scoreless innings. Reliever Barrett Astin (2-0) struck out three and allowed just one hit and no walks in four innings to pick up the win.