Las Vegas 51s Weekly Report

After getting off to a good start in Pacific Coast League the Las Vegas 51s hit the skids in a big way over the last seven games. At the time of last week’s report the 51s were in second place in the PCL South Division with a 9-4 record. After going winless in all seven games over the last week between reports the 51s are now 9-11 and have joined up with Fresno in the basement, four and a half games off the pace of the first place Reno Aces.

The 51s return home tomorrow night for a two series, eight game set against divisional opponents. They’ll take on the 11-9 Sacramento River Cats Friday through Monday and then will have to go up against Reno, who at 13-6 currently sport the league’s best record. Three of the seven losses in the last week saw the 51s come up just one run short and scored an average of 4.86 runs per game while allowing a whopping 8.86 runs per game. The runs allowed might look a little deceiving considering they got pasted last night 3-17 but that was the third game of the seven in which they allowed ten runs or more.

The struggles keeping the opposition off the board pushed their runs allowed per game on the season up to 6.05 and just a week after having the league’s second best WHIP, they now have a 1.54 WHIP, the eleventh best in the league. As was mentioned last week, WHIP is a flawed stat when evaluating pitchers on their own but using it here as a way of showing how both the pitching and defense is doing at keeping runners off base it becomes a more worthwhile statistic to pay some attention to.

The 51s pitchers themselves have struggled recording strikeouts with their 6.6 Ks per nine innings being the second worst in the league. It’s not all doom and gloom for the staff however, they have allowed the second fewest number of home runs, 13, in the league so far. Offensively, the team is in the middle of the pack in runs scored per game but are fifth in both batting average, .298 and total bases, 320, and are fourth in walks with 79. Their base stealing prowess has been less than ideal, they’re eight in the league with 18 steals but are also second in the league with 13 caught stealings.

Last Wednesday’s 8-7 loss to Salt Lake at home didn’t have much in the way of good pitching for the home side but Wilfredo Ledezma turned in a scoreless two and a third innings performance and picked up a strikeout against no walks and one hit. The 51s did score seven runs in the losing effort and Brett Lawrie, Eric Thames and David Cooper all had two hit days while Mike McCoy had a hit and three walks. None faired better than Adam Loewen, he had three hits including a homer.

The third of four games against Salt Lake on Thursday was another high scoring affair that the 51s lost 9-12. Brett Lawrie went yard, banged out a double and had a three hit day, Ryan Shealy had two hits, including a double, and the team drew six walks, half of them by Eric Thames. Mike MacDonald lasted five innings but gave up seven earned runs on thirteen hits and a walk while only setting down two batters on strikes. The bullpen didn’t fair much better giving up five runs on seven hits in four innings, split two a piece between Josh Roenicke and Rommie Lewis.

The 51s dropped the finale against Salt Lake, 5-7, in spite of Lawries’ two home runs and three total hits and additional homers from Ryan Budde and Ryan Shealy. The 51s had Jesse Litsch pop in for a start after a less than deserved demotion from the big club and he went three innings allowing one run on four hits and no walks with a pair of strikeouts. The ‘pen wasn’t much help again here either as each of the next three relievers to follow Litsch allowed an earned run and Danny Farquhar allowed three unearned runs on top of his one earned run. Only Chad Cordero escaped unscathed as he worked a clean ninth inning.

The pitching finally came through for the 51s on Saturday at Colorado Springs but they still lost 1-2 anyways. The game only went seven innings with the last two innings being called off due to…snow. It robbed the 51s of perhaps their best chance at win during the losing streak. Scott Richmond started and went four innings, he didn’t pitch great, walking two and striking out but he only gave up two runs on six hits and got five groundball outs to one flyout. Willie Collazo pitched a scoreless two and two thirds innings of relief allowing a hit, walking one and striking out two. The 51s plated a lone run despite ten hits and had Loewen leading the way with a perfect three for three day.

The woes continued agains the Sky Sox on Sunday as 51s pitchers were battered for another ten runs and Brad Mills had a rough go of it yielding six runs on nine hits in five innings. The offense bounced back and tallied six runs in the losing effort with Cooper and Shealy picking up two hits a piece as did Danny Perales and Jonathan Diaz reached base three times with a hit and a pair of walks.

Monday’s game against Colorado Springs was another close one, 5-6, that Vegas couldn’t pull out. Luis Perez got the start for the 51s and went five and two thirds innings setting down eight batters on strikes. But he also walked four and gave up three runs, all earned. Cooper had a perfect three for three day with a walk. Eric Thames had two hits and a double.

Tuesday’s game was a complete disaster. The 51s were beaten 3-17, even with Brett Cecil getting his first start since his demotion from the Blue Jays. Cecil was routed for eleven runs, ten earned, on thirteen hits and three walks and allowed three homers. DeWayne Wise, Brian Jeroloman and Diaz all had two hit days and Darin Mastroianni went three for four with a pair of doubles.

The Brett Lawrie Watch

Despite the team’s struggles, Lawrie continues to do nothing but hit and hit and hit. From last Wednesday through last night Lawrie had at least one hit in every game and batted .406. He went deep three times and picked up a pair of doubles in the last week as well. His plate discipline has been his lone downfall at the dish thus far. In the last week he went down on strikes twelve times and walked just once, on the season now he has four walks against twenty strikeouts.

Lawrie also managed to go through the last week without committing any errors either, another good sign as he had picked up six through the first twelve games. Last week report had Lawrie seeing 3.45 pitches per plate appearance, that fell down to 3.25 P/PA for the season after last night’s game. He’s hitting, he went a week without an error, now turn some more attention to his walk and strikeout numbers to look for improvement. He has a .500 batting average on balls in play and that’s certainly going to fall and he’ll need to draw some walks when it happens to keep making himself productive.

The Best Five and Their Numbers

Each week we’ll give you a table with several stats, most from StatCorner, of each of the 51s best five hitters and pitchers. For hitters the table will include their batting average, strikeout and walk rates, isolated power, batting average on balls in play, their park adjusted wOBA and wOBA+. For pitchers you’ll see their innings pitched, strikeout, walks and homers per nine innings, their groundball rates, tRA and FIP. Please, please, please, take sometime to get to know these stats. They’re all very useful.

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All advanced stats from StatCorner and all other stats are from Baseball-Reference. All game results and box score data is from the 51s official site.