Game 57: San Antonio Missions (Juan Oramas) @ Frisco RoughRiders (Jake Brigham)

Time: 7:00 PM CT 

Location: Dr. Pepper Ballpark (Frisco,TX)

Team Records: Frisco RoughRiders (32-24 6 games back in the Texas League South)... San Antonio Missions (38-18 1st place in the Texas League South)

Streak: Won 6 in a row

Last 10: 8-2

Series Record: 8-7-1

2011 Record against San Antonio: 5-7

All-Time Record against San Antonio: 115-114

Record Since 2004 on June 8th: 4-1 with 2 off days

Starting Pitchers: Jake Brigham (2-4 4.87 ERA) is 0-2 with a 7.42 ERA and a 1.27 WHIP in 3 career starts against the San Antonio Missions... Juan Oramas (1-0 2.70 ERA) is 0-0 with a 5.40 ERA and 1.80 WHIP in 1 career appearance against the Frisco RoughRiders.

What to Watch for on the Mound: Frisco sends Jake Brigham to the mound for the 12th time this season, while San Antonio sends Juan Oramas to the mound for the 4th time and 3rd start of the season in a battle of the 1st and 2nd place teams in the Texas League South... Jake Brigham looks to get back on track after having 3 consecutive shaky starts. After pitching solidly through his first 8 starts, Brigham has gotten sidetracked with command issues at times over the last 3. In his last outing, Brigham did only give up 3 earned runs over 5 innings, but also allowed 10 baserunners via hits or walks. He gave up 6 hits and 4 walks with 3 strikeouts over the 5 innings. Over his last 3 starts combined, Brigham has given up 15 hits and 11 walks over 11 2/3 innings with 8 strikeouts. On the season Jake has given up 53 hits and 26 walks over 57 1/3 innings with 52 strikeouts. Right handed batters are hitting just .210 against Brigham on the season and he has posted a 4.28 ERA at Dr. Pepper Ballpark in 6 starts this season, although he is still searching for his first win there... Juan Oramas takes the mound for his second road start in AA. In his last start, Oramas gave up 4 hits, 3 walks, and 2 runs over 5 innings with 4 strikeouts at home against the Arkansas Travelers. Oramas faced Frisco in relief on May 21, his first AA appearance, and gave up 3 hits, 3 walks, and 2 runs over 3 1/3 innings with 2 strikeouts. The 21 year old southpaw has held right handed batters to a .167 batting average early on. Last year Oramas pitched in the Midwest League (low-A) and the California League (high-A), the first time he had pitched in the United States, and combined to go 7-4 with a 2.73 ERA over 29 games/21 starts. In 99 innings he allowed 73 hits, 29 walks, and struck out 115 batters. Oramas was rated as the 17th best prospect in the San Diego Padre's system entering 2011 by Baseball America. He was signed out of Mexico in 2006 at 16 years old.

Big Series Ahead: With just 14 games remaining on the schedule for the first half of the season, this week's 4 game series between Frisco and San Antonio may be the most critical series of the season for Frisco. Frisco is coming off a 6-0 road trip, but despite that 6-0 trip, they were only able to gain a game on San Antonio. Now, they get San Antonio for 4 games, however, and could gain or lose as many as 4 games to the Missions. San Antonio is 6-2 against Frisco in San Antonio this season, but when the Missions came to Frisco last time they lost 3 of 4 to the Riders. Anything is possible at this point.

Key Frisco RoughRider's hitters Since May 1st:

Leonys Martin: .357/.439/.583/1.022

Jose Ruiz: .301/.340/.516/.856

Renny Osuna: .328/.385/.458/.843

Jonathan Greene: .288/.344/.486/.831

Tommy Mendonca: .261/.326/.496/.822

Michael Bianucci: .254/.311/.451/.762

Guilder Rodriguez: .279/.372/.351/.723

Keeping San Antonio's Offense Down: The Frisco RoughRiders may be 5-7 against the Missions, but if there is one thing they have excelled at against San Antonio it is keeping their offense from scoring runs in bunches against them. As a team this season, San Antonio is batting .290/.378/.500/.878 and averages 6.34 runs per game. Against the RoughRiders, however, the Missions have batted .243/.348/.398/.746 and have averaged 4.75 runs per game. Consider that against the other 2 teams in the Texas League South, San Antonio has averaged 7.5 runs per game with an .881 OPS against Corpus Christi and a .923 OPS against Midland.

In Deep Decline: Jaff Decker started the 2011 season like a man on a mission, but since May 1st, Jaff Decker has been struggling mightily. In April, Decker batted .316/.449/.759/1.208 with 7 doubles, 2 triples, 8 homeruns, and 18 BB-26 strikeouts. Since then he has batted .185/.342/.258/.600. Perhaps most telling is the lack of extra base hits as Decker has just 5 extra base hits in 124 at bats since May 1st, after having 17 in his first 79 at bats this season. He still has gotten the walks, however, as he has walked 28 times to 39 strikeouts since May 1st. 

In Other Texas Ranger's Farm System News: Joe Wieland pitched on Tuesday night and gave up a 2 out walk to Jake Oester in the top of the 7th inning of his start. It was Wieland's first walk given up since he walked Andy Wilkins with 2 outs in the top of the 6th inning on April 18th. The streak spanned 227 batters faced and 8 full starts without a walk. He had struck out 64 batters since his last walk given up and has as many walks (2) as losses (2) in his last 10 starts. To put this in perspective, there were 128 pitchers that walked a batter in the Carolina League between April 19th and June 6th. Joe Wieland had walked 0. During that time 13 pitchers had faced more batters, only 5 pitchers had pitched more innings than Wieland and only 1 pitcher had struck out more hitters.

MLB Draft: The MLB draft continued yesterday and will finish up today. Through yesterday's part of the draft (30 rounds), here is what the Texas Ranger's Draft looks like: 

Round	Overall	POS	Name	School
1	33	LHP	Kevin Matthews	Richmond Hill HS (GA)
1	37	OF	Zach Cone	Georgia
2	83	LHP	Will Lamb	Clemson
3	113	RHP	Kyle Castro	Pleasant Grove HS (CA)
4	144	CF	Desmond Henry	Centennial HS (CA)
5	174	RHP	Brandon Woodruff	Wheeler HS (MS)
6	204	CF	Derek Fisher	Cedar Crest HS (PA)
7	234	C	Max Pentecost	Winder Barrow HS (GA)
8	264	RHP	Kyle Hendricks	Dartmouth
9	294	CF	Rashad Harlin	Helix HS (CA)
10	324	C	Joe Maloney	Limestone College
11	354	RHP	Connor Sadzeck	Howard College
12	384	LHP	Gregory Williams	Marshall
13	414	OF	Christopher Grayson	Lee University
14	444	LHP	Andrew Faulkner	South Aiken HS (SC)
15	474	RHP	Jerad Eickhoff	Olney Central College
16	504	LF	Trever Adams	Creighton
17	534	SS	Ryan Rua	Lake Erie College
18	564	RHP	Nicholas Martinez	Fordham U
19	594	RHP	Nathan Harsh	Brunswick HS (GA)
20	624	SS	Nickolaus Vickerson	Mississippi State U
21	654	RHP	Chance Sossamon	Wichita State
22	684	SS	Timothy Costen	First Colonial HS (VA)
23	714	LHP	Michael Mason	Marshall
24	744	C	Zach Fish	Gull Lake HS (MI)
25	774	LHP	Jordan Remer	U. of San Francisco
26	804	RHP	Ryan Bores	Cuyahoga CC
27	834	RHP	Kyle Devore	Sacramento CC
28	864	CF	Saquan Johnson	East Bladen HS (NC)
29	894	RHP	Nicholas Sawyer	Howard College
30	924	RHP	Phillipp Klein	Youngstown State U

Last Year on This Date: The Frisco RoughRider's had the day off.

Around the Ranger's System

Yesterday's Record: 1-2

Round Rock (AAA) lost 6-3 to the Albuquerque Isotopes at home. Derek Hankins started for Round Rock and gave up 7 hits and 4 runs over 6 innings with 5 strikeouts and 0 walks. Pedro Strop relieved Hankins and gave up 5 hits and 2 runs over 2 innings with 4 strikeouts and 0 walks. Cody Eppley pitched a scoreless 9th inning. Chad Tracy went 1 for 4 with a triple at the plate for Round Rock. Joey Butler went 2 for 4 with a RBI and a walk. He has hit in 10 straight games and 30 of the 34 he has played in for Round Rock. Esteban German led the Express with 3 hits in 6 at bats.

Myrtle Beach (High-A) tied the game in the bottom of the 9th inning, but gave up 4 in the top of the 10th inning to lose 6-2 to the Winston-Salem Dash. Joe Wieland started for Myrtle Beach and gave up 6 hits, 1 walk, and 2 runs over 7 innings with 5 strikeouts. As mentioned above, the walk was his first in 227 batters faced. Trevor Hurley pitched 2 innings of scoreless relief. Ryan Kelly took the loss after giving up 4 runs in 2/3 of an inning. Chad Bell got the final out of the 10th inning. Leury Garcia led Myrtle Beach with 2 hits in 4 at bats, including a double and a RBI. Ryan Strausborger went 1 for 4 for the Pelicans. Jared Prince also went 1 for 4. Former Riders David Paisano, Mitch Hilligoss, and Chris McGuinness each added a hit in the game for Myrtle Beach. 

Hickory (Low-A) scored 8 runs in the first 3 innings and 10 runs in the first 4 and defeated the Lakewood Blue Claws 10-3 at home. Nick Tepesch started for Hickory and had his best performance yet. Tepesch gave up just 3 hits and 1 walk over 7 shutout innings while he struck out 10 batters. Ben Henry finished the game with 2 innings of relief where he gave up 3 runs (2 earned). Jurickson Profar went 3 for 5 with a double and a RBI raising his season average to .288 with a .931 OPS. Odubel Herrera went 2 for 5 with a double and 2 RBI for the Crawdads, who have won 5 of their last 6. Christian Villanueva added 2 hits as well including a RBI. Tomas Telis went 1 for 5, but had a double. Jake Skole, last year's 1st round pick by Texas, went 1 for 3 with a homerun (his 2nd), 2 RBI, and a walk on the same day his brother was drafted by the Washington Nationals in the 5th round. Jonathan Roof added a double and 2 RBI as part of a 1 for 4 day. Josh Richmond, who went 1 for 4, was the only player in the lineup to not score a run or drive in a run.

Minor League Performance of the Day

Speaking of 5th round picks, Collin Cowgill had himself a heck of a day on Tuesday night for the Reno Aces. Cowgill, The former 5th round pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2008 draft, went 5 for 6 with a double, triple, and homerun in Reno's 10th inning walkoff 8-7 win over the Salt Lake Bees. The 25 year old outfielder doubled to centerfield in the first inning, had an infield single in the 3rd, singled again in the 5th inning to centerfield, homered in the 6th inning to right field, and tripled to centerfield in the 8th inning to complete the cycle. Cowgill is batting .366 on the year for Reno and has a 1.041 OPS through 57 games. He has hit 13 doubles, 5 triples, 11 homeruns and driven in 40 runs. Over 4 minor league seasons, Collin has batted .294 with an .868 OPS. He has 72 doubles, 18 triples, and 45 homeruns in 319 minor league games.

As always...

Station to Listen to the Game on: 1630 AM (KKGM)
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And Check Out the Riders Insider Blog for more Frisco RoughRiders info: http://ridersinsider.mlblogs.com/

- By Michael Damman