Pitching Matchups; Games of the Day 8/29/11

3:00pm
Lowell Spinners (Raynel Velette 2-4, 6.80) GAME 1
vs. Tri-City ValleyCats (Kyle Hallock 2-4, 1.82)

5:35pm
Pawtucket Red Sox (Tony Pena 9-5, 3.46) GAME 1
vs. Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees (Manny Banuelos 1-2, 3.86)

Pawtucket Red Sox (Alex Wilson 0-0, 4.50) GAME 2
vs. Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees (Dellin Betances 0-1, 5.00)

6:35pm
Connecticut Tigers (Wilsen Palacios 4-4, 3.32)
vs. Vermont Lake Monsters (Seth Frankoff 4-3, 2.85)
This game will follow the completion of the suspended game from June 25th.

7:00pm
Portland Sea Dogs (Jeremy Kehrt 2-1, 4.54)
vs. Harrisburg Senators (Daniel Rosenbaum 3-0, 1.37)

Lowell Spinners (Raul Alcantara 0-2, 9.82) GAME 2
vs. Tri-City ValleyCats (Adam Champion 4-1, 3.72)

7:05pm
New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Nestor Molina 2-0, 0.56)
vs. Trenton Thunder (Craig Heyer 10-7, 3.88)

New Britain Rock Cats (Logan Darnell 1-0, 3.98)
vs. Richmond Flying Squirrels (Justin Fitzgerald 8-9, 3.55)

Game of the Day – Red Sox vs. Yankees – As the two big clubs get set to meet at Fenway for three games starting Tuesday night, the Triple-A version of this rivalry goes into effect tonight, starting with a doubleheader, the second twin-bill between these teams in four days (Saturday and Sunday’s games were washed out by Hurricane Irene). So with eight games to play, the PawSox find themselves one game up on Lehigh Valley in the I.L. North, with the Gwinnett Braves standing as the only real Wild Card competition should they slip into second place. Tonight’s doubleheader features three starting pitchers who have all been promoted to Triple-A in August and combined have nine starts between them. The “veteran” of the group is Tony Pena who has had a “steady-as-he-goes” attitude about him all season. Despite this being only his thirteenth start of the year, Pena is tied for the team lead with nine wins and is fourth on the team with 106 2/3 innings pitched. Alex Wilson seeks his first Triple-A win in his third start for Pawtucket. In his first two starts Wilson has pitched a combined 10 innings and has struck out 10 batters, but has also yielded 9 hits and 6 walks. On the Yankees side sits two of my favorite pitching prospects in the game, Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances. Banuelos got the call-up at the beginning of the month, so he is the experienced one at this level, in all of his five starts. He has gone at least 5 innings in four of those starts and he has struck out 24 batters in 25 2/3 innings, but he has also allowed 12 walks and 31 hits, leading to an inflated 1.68 WHIP. Betances pitched well in his first start with Scranton when he struck out 9 Durham batters over 6 innings. However, things got real dicey in his second start when he was yanked after 3 innings, despite only giving up 1 hit and 2 runs, because of the 9 free passes he allowed. As far as who is pitching which game, your guess is as good as mine…hell, it’s probably better. But based on how MiLB.com has listed doubleheaders with the pitching matchups backwards all year long, and since the Pena/Banuelos matchup was supposed to be Saturday initially, I figured that would be the Game 1 matchup and thus Wilson/Betances in Game 2...but just a heads up because it could be the other way around.

Check out all of the action live on MiLB Gameday Audio by clicking on the banner below: