Minor League Update: New Additions Have Different Results

Well one piece to the C.C. Sabathia trade had a positive debut for their new organization. Hint hint.. It wasn’t Matt LaPorta.

Zach Jackson pitched two innings of relief allowing just one hit to pick up the win in the first game against Syracuse. All signs point to Matt Ginter starting the game for Cleveland on Saturday so they wanted to get him in and get him out.

The other new pitcher for Buffalo, Preston Larrison, picked up the two inning save, yielding just one walk. Asdrubal Cabrera had a solo home run and Chris Gimenez contributed with a two run shot in the 7th.

Gimenez also knocked in a run in the second game, while Jordan Brown hit a solo home run and had an RBI single for the Buffalo scoring.

Gain an outfield, lose another.. Trevor Crowe was named Eastern League player of the month.. then he celebrated by going on the DL. Truly a shame as he was healthy and hitting well. I wonder if we’ll ever see him. He has an intercostral strain (same thing Westbrook had). Wyatt Toregas as mentioned was named EL Player of the Week.

While it wasn’t a positive debut for Matt LaPorta, it certainly wasn’t negative. In fact it didn’t even happen. LaPorta’s flight was delayed on top of the fact the game got rained out. We had some crazy storms last night so I’m not surprised Akron got pounded as well.

The press conference still happened though and it must have been crazy for LaPorta. Nothing new for him though.

”[The last 24 hours] have been kind of crazy,” he admitted with an easy smile. ”On Saturday, I talked to our manager and he told me not to worry about anything going on with the trade, just play ball,” LaPorta said. ”So I did until my name wasn’t in the lineup. As the day went on I learned I wasn’t playing because the trade might go on. At the end of the game I walked in the clubhouse and there was a bunch of media people in there, so I was like, ‘Obviously something must have happened.’ ” (ABJ)

”I like new things in my life,” he said. ”And this is definitely a new task. But I’m enjoying it.” (ABJ)

You can watch an interview with LaPorta, conducted by Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com here.

You can also hear the presser he had with the media, via Terry Pluto and the Plain Dealer.

LaPorta also does a journal for MLB.com, here is his pre-trade entry before he learned of the move where he talked about being selected to the futures game.

More good news for Akron.. They are getting Chuck Lofgren back. Lofgren mysteriously went back to extended spring-training awhile ago. He will be pitching from the pen for the time being though. This team could make a serious EL Playoff run.