Ballou On Baseball: August 10 Update

Baseball has its faults, and that has been the case since at least 1845. The game seems to have survived nicely, however, and one reason for that is what happened at Polar Park last Thursday night.

Three Worcester Red Sox pitchers — Michael Wacha, A.J. Politi and Chase Shugart — combined to throw a no-hitter and beat a Durham team that had won, 16-0, just 48 hours before.

“Something like that doesn’t happen that often,” manager Chad Tracy said. “No hitters are incredible in that situation. There was a game in between where we pitched pretty well and lost 3-1, but to have it happen so close to a game that we lost by 16 runs is pretty remarkable. I was thinking about that around the 7th inning or so — two nights ago, we couldn’t get these guys out and now they can’t get a hit.”

That is the essence of baseball. It remains remarkably predictable in the long run, completely unpredictable day to day, even inning by inning. No matter how good or bad the teams are, or the players are, each game arrives as an unwrapped Christmas present.

For the record, it was the first Red Sox Triple-A no hitter in 19 years and merely the ninth in the team’s Triple-A history. Put it this way, the fans at Thursday night’s game saw something that had been done eight times in 13,328 previous Boston Triple-A affiliate games.

It was not as historic as Pawtucket’s Longest Game in 1981 at McCoy Stadium, but what WooSox executive Mike Tamburro once said about that one holds true for last week’s no-hitter.

“It made everybody in the state of Rhode Island and the surrounding area believe that something important could happen at the little ballpark on Columbus Avenue on any given day.”

Polar Park is not so little and Madison is a street, not an avenue, but the message is the same.

Anything can happen there on any given day.

TRIPLE-A TRIVIA

1. Which Triple-Affiliate is the longest distance away from its major league partner?

2. What southpaw hurler holds the WooSox all-time record for most pitches thrown in a game?

HERE AND THERE

You can argue anything, but facts are facts. One obvious fact that was reinforced last week is that Franchy Cordero is, to date, the most important player in the Worcester Red Sox’ brief history. Sunday’s appearance was his 100th start in a WooSox uniform. The team is 61-30 (.610) in those games, 67-66 (.504) otherwise. … Triston Casas’ bat is demonstrating the exit velocity Boston expected when he was signed. The next step is elevation. Casas has become a doubles machine with five in his last four games and 15 in 51 games for 2022. That projects to about 45 over a full year. … Enmanuel Valdez is the fifth player to hit a home run in his first game with Worcester, second this season joining Pedro Castellanos. Chris Hermann, Tate Matheny and Triston Casas all did it last year. Nobody has done it his first time up, at least not yet. … It was not necessarily unique, but it was historic last week at Polar Park when the rival managers met at home plate to exchange lineup cards. Both are the sons of former major league skippers — Chad and Jim Tracy as well as Brady and Jimy Williams, a former Red Sox manager among other teams. … A worthwhile read, either during the last few weeks of this season or some winter fireplace time, is Sean McAdam’s just-published book, “Boston Red Sox: A Curated History of the Sox.” McAdam has covered the team since the late 1980s and knows the franchise’s legacy inside and out. It is available on amazon.com

TRIVIA ANSWERS

1. The Oklahoma City Dodgers of the Pacific Coast League are 1,328 miles from their parent team in Los Angeles. The biggest distance in the International League is 755 miles between Charlotte and Chicago, home of the White Sox.

2. Kyle Hart, with Double-A Portland at present, threw 114 pitches in a loss to Scranton-Wilkes-Barre on July 14, 2021. Hart also is second and third on that same list.

BITS AND PIECES

There is time left for Jose Peraza to hit his first WooSox home run and become the first batter to hit a homer both for and against Worcester in the same season. He went deep at Polar Park on May 20 versus Thomas Pannone while with Scranton-Wilkes-Barre. Two players have homered both for and against Worcester, but not in the same season — Yairo Munoz and Deivy Grullon. Munoz has split 2022 between Lehigh Valley and the Phillies and his longest hitting streak to date is five games after having an organization record 35-gamer last year with the WooSox. … Longtime minor leaguer Joey Meneses, who batted .260 for Worcester in 38 games last season, finally made his big league debut this year at age 30. Meneses, an MVP candidate with Rochester through July, played first base for the Nationals on Aug. 2 and homered in the seventh for his first major league hit. … The Red Sox organization said good-bye to two very classy players last week when it released Jackie Bradley Jr. from Boston and Grant Williams from Worcester. Both are consummate professionals on and off the field and hopefully find a home with some other team. … The WooSox 10-game losing streak early in the season seemed to come out of nowhere and last forever. Six of those losses were to Rochester at Polar Park by combined scores of 39-19. How can it be that those same Red Wings have now lost 17 in a row?

CATCHING UP WITH…

Pitcher Alex Wilson, who was born in Saudi Arabia and went to high school in West Virginia — a unique combination — is a baseball agent with the Ballengee Group of Dallas. Wilson had a substantial major league career and prepped for that by spending parts of four seasons at Pawtucket from 2011-2014. He had a 15-5 record in that span.

Hector Velazquez is pitching in his native Mexico for Monclova. He made 19 starts for Pawtucket in 2017 and went 8-4, and also was 3-1 in Boston where he spent parts of three seasons.