We are heading into All-Star week in the Eastern League, and while there are plenty of wacky and wild games going on at the week’s festivities, there was plenty of quality baseball leading up to the break.
Darrell Ceciliani of the Binghampton Mets is one player who was not happy to see the break arrive. He had multiple hits in each of his last five games, including a pain or home runs in his final game of the first half. Over his past ten games, he has put up about a fifth of his hit total, a quarter of his RBIs, and a third of his home runs. He was clearly on a roll as his 10-game average was .378, raising his season average to .279 on the season. Binghampton fans are surely hopeful he can carry his recent hot streak through the break and keep it going once the second half picks back up.
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The only player to have a better week than Ceciliani is his teammate, Travis Taijeron. Taijeron is coming off a week in which he earner Player of the Week honors and has a ten game triple slash line of .366/.435/.72 and four home runs. Meanwhile, the pitcher of the week is New Britain Rock Cats starter Virgil Vasquez on the heels of his complete game shutout of New Hampshire where he allowed just five hits, walked none, and sent eight batters straight back to the dugout via the strikeout.
The top pitcher in the league, Henry Owens, has allowed at least one earned run in each of his past three starts, which seems normal, until you take into account he had managed to prevent a single run from scoring in five of the seven outings prior. His ERA on the season has “skyrocketed” to 2.21, but he also put in a solid outing at the MLB Futures Game.
Peter O’Brien is also coming off a weekend which saw him on the big stage of the Futures Game. O’Brien has only 58 games in the Eastern league after putting in 30 games in the Florida State League to start the season, but has 19 home runs, placing him third on the home run leader board for the Eastern League. Christian Walker is one home run ahead of O’Brien, while Steven Moya has a three home run lead, while they have played in 95 and 90 games respectively.
The Portland Sea Dogs and Richmond Flying Squirrels each head into the break leading their respective divisions, with Binghampton and the Akron RubberDucks each firmly in a playoff spot, but there is still plenty of season left.