Former Wild Things make impact in Game 1

The Southern Illinois Miners have three former Wild Things -- relief pitchers Nick Cicio and Steve Grife, and catcher Chris Anderson -- on their roster. Each played a big role in the Miners' 5-3 victory Wednesday night over Florence in Game 1 of the Frontier League championship series.

Anderson, who began the season as Washington's starting catcher but was released after beginning the year 0-for-13, hit a two-run homer that gave Southern Illinois a 3-1 lead in the third inning. Anderson was signed by the Miners in early August and hit .274 with one home run down the stretch in the regular season.

Cicio and Grife were acquired from Washington in an August trade for outfielder Darian Sandford and pitcher Anthony Collazo. Cicio pitched and Grife combined for 1 1/3 perfect innings of relief and two strikeouts in Game 1.

Since joining Southern Illinois, Cicio and Grife have given the Miners superb pitching in setup roles. They have pitched 30 2/3 innings (regular season and playoffs), allowing only 11 hits, four runs and six walks with 38 strikeouts.

Playoffs set

Southern Illinois clinched the final wild card playoff spot Sunday by defeating Lake Erie in the second game of a day-night doubleheader. The Miners, who are in the playoffs for the fourth time and trying for their first series victory, will begin the playoffs Wednesday at East Division champion Traverse City.

Two teams that made late-season playoff pushes will meet in the other series. West Division champion Gateway will host Florence, which finished in second place in the East. Florence is in the playoffs for the first time in the franchise's 10-year history.

Windy City and Schaumburg each missed the playoffs by two games. The Boomers led the West Division for the majority of the season. Lake Erie fell 2 1/2 game shy of the postseason.

Of the four playoff teams, only Gateway (2003) has won a league championship.

Major move by Miners

The Southern Illinois Miners, who are currently four games behind East Division leader Traverse City and tied for the two wild-card playoff spots with Gateway, began to rework its roster for the pennant race last week when they traded leadoff hitter Darian Sandford to the Wild Things for relief pitchers Steve Grife and Nick Cicio.

Southern Illinois made another trade today, and it might have landed the Miners the missing piece for its offense. The Miners acquired outfielder Javier Herrera from Rockford in exchange for three players to be named.

Herrera is third in the league in batting average (.338) and RBI (64). He already has hit for the cycle in a game this season, which is his first in the Frontier League.

You might recall that Herrera, while in the Oakland Athletics' organization, spent two years on Baseball America's Top 100 prospects list. He climbed to as high as the No. 2 prospect in the Athletics' system before a series of injuries forced him out of affiliated ball. He did not play professionally last year.

They can still trade in the Frontier League

Though the nonwaiver trade deadline in Major League Baseball passed yesterday, the transaction deadline has not been reached in the Frontier League. The Wild Things made another trade Wednesday, sending relief pitchers Steve Grife and Nick Cicio to Southern Illinois in exchange for center fielder Darian Sandford (pictured) and lefty reliever Anthony Collazo.

The hard-throwing Grife (0-2, 6 saves, 4.79) and soft-tossing Cicio (0-4, 1 save, 4.25) each have been erratic this season. Though I like Grife as a power arm in a save situation, it seemed as if Grife was never a favorite of this year's Wild Things' coaching staff and his role has diminished in recent weeks.

Sandford, who leads the Frontier League in stolen bases, spent two years in the Kansas City Royals system before signing with Southern Illinois this season. He's a speedy switch-hitter who made the Frontier League All-Star game and is batting .256 with 45 stolen bases.

It seems that pitchers might have figured out Sandford as he ended his run with Southern Illinois on a 6-for-41 slide.

Collazo (3-0. 1 save, 2.28) has been a setup guy for the Miners. This is his first year of pro baseball. Collazo played at Howard Junior College and the University of Oklahoma.

By my count, with the addition of Sandford and Collazo, the Wild Things have had 55 players on the roster during the regular season. Yes, that's a team record. The previous record for most players used was 46, set in 2009, when Mark Mason was the manager.

The trading of Cicio meands that only seven of the 24 players who were with Washington on opening day in Evansville are still on the roster. The seven include five pitchers (Casey Barnes, Justin Hall, Jhonny Montoya, Chris Smith and Shawn Smith) and two position players (Michael Bando and Shain Stoner).

Clip from Friday night's game

Here is some video from WSIL-TV of the Wild Things' 3-1 win over Southern Illinois Friday night.

http://www.wsiltv.com/sports/local/Miners-Taken-Down-by-Wild-Things-163261346.html

Tarp attack

Here is a link to some amazing video of from a rain delay Friday in the game between Southern Illinois and Joliet.

A severe thunderstorm with heavy rain and strong wind gusts moved through Joliet between the sixth and seventh innings at Silver Cross Field. The ground crew put the tarp down over the infield and seemed to have it secured. The wind, however, lifted up the tarp. Some of the ground crew who returned to reposition the tarp were gobbled up in the flying tarp.

The game called after six innings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6O0XxnO_s4

Celebrate good times

Here's a photo, from the Daily Republican in Marion, Ill., of the Southern Illinois Miners celebrating in the clubhouse after clinching a playoff berth Tuesday night with a come-from-behind win over Gateway. Do you know the guy in the front row of the photo? You get one guess.

Wild Things-Miners highlights

Jump to 1:48 into the video and you get Eric Stephens' game-winning home run.

Watch video here.

The longest night

The Wild Things tied their team record Wednesday night/Thursday morning for longest game by innings in a 5-4 loss at Southern Illinois in 17 innings.

The 5-hour, 29-hour minute game was easily the longest in terms of time in team history, and the second-longest is not even close to last night's marathon that the Wild Things had a stranglehold on in the bottom of the ninth.

Washington led 4-2 with two outs and nobody on base in the ninth. One out away from a win, closer Taylor Wulf issued a walk that preceded consecutive doubles that tied the score and forced a whole bunch of extra innings.

Here are some of the notables from the game:

* Washington catcher Blake Ochoa hit two home runs.

* The Wild Things' Davis Bilardello made his debut with 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief.

* Wild Things reliever Matt Barnes threw six shutout innings and struck out eight. He did not walk a batter.

* Southern Illinois' Trey Manz, who is listed on the roster as a catcher but entered the game by playing right field, was shifted to pitcher during the extra innings. Manz made his pro pitching debut by throwing three shutout innings and getting the win. The 23-year-old Manz said he hadn't pitched since an intrasquad game in his sophomore year of college.

* Southern Illinois pitcher Ryan Quigley had to play right field for several innings.

* The losing pitcher was Sean Allaire, a backup infielder and catcher who relieved Barnes and started the 17th inning. Allaire pitched in one mopup inning earlier this year. Prior to that, he pitched in only one game in college (an alumni game) and one game in high school. The interesting part is that Washington had two relief pitchers they did not use: Kevin Hammons and Mick Mattaliano. Hammons did not appear in any of the Wild Things' first nine games, except to pinch-hit once in a blowout. He finally pitched in a game Tuesday night in the series opener and faced three batters, striking out two. Mattaliano also pitched Tuesday night, facing only one batter.

* The Wild Things' other 17-inning game was played in 2003 at home against Evansville. The Wild Things lost that one, too, 3-2. That game took only 4 hours and 26 minutes to play and here's why: the home-plate umpire that night had the widest strike ever in baseball. EVER! As I recall, all the pitchers had to do to get a strike call was throw the baseball to between Franklin Farms Road and the Taylorstown exit on I-70.

I know, you think I'm exaggerating. Well, I am. But only a little. Want proof? Here goes: There were only two walks in that game. Think about that for a moment. Only two walks in a 17-inning Frontier League game. None of the walks were issued by Washington pitchers. Only one walk came after the second inning. The first nine innings were played in only 1:58.

Washington's best chance to win came in the 16th inning when Joe Cuervo was tagged out trying to score from third base on a short passed ball. Evansville then won it in the 17th on an error and two singles.

Photo courtesy of the Marion Daily Republican.

Cleaning out the notebook

Some notes and thoughts and we head down the homestretch of the Frontier League season:

* It seems far removed from the Wild Things and Lake Erie Crushers, two teams who are playing out the string tonight at Consol Energy Park, but there are excellent playoff races in both divisions of the Frontier League.

Windy City rallied Tuesday night to edge Oakland County 3-2 as the ThunderBolts pushed their lead in the East to 2 games over the Cruisers. Meanwhile, Traverse City won a game over Kalamazoo that it probably should have lost and now trails Oakland County by only 1 game and Windy City by 3. Keep in mind that all of Traverse City's remaining 11 games will be played at home, including the final three against Washington.

In the West, Southern Illinois has ran away with the division title. The Miners clinched a playoff berth Tuesday. Gateway, meanwhile, missed a chance to pull closer to second-place River City. The Rascals lead Gateway by 2 1/2 games for the final playoff spot. River City has a big advantage in the remaining schedule as they do not play another game against a team with a winning record.

* Southern Illinois, which was 32-4 at one point, might have seen its championship chances take a big hit earlier this week. Joe Augustine (10-3, 1.97), who is a serious contender for the league's Pitcher of the Year Award, had an emergency appendectomy Monday. The team was returning from Lake Erie when Augustine began experiencing pain. When it was determined Augustine needed medical attention, the bus was within seven miles of a hospital in Louisville.

Augustine leads the league in wins and strikeouts (121). You might recall that Augustine pitched nine shutout innings last week at Consol Energy Park in the game Washington won 1-0 in 11 innings.

Southern Illinois manager Mike Pinto hasn't ruled out having Augustine back for the playoffs, saying his pitcher will be permitted to resume throwing in "10 to 14 days." Pinto called it a "50-50" chance that Augustine will return in the postseason.

* Washington pitcher Justin Edwards, who suffered a groin injury during a start earlier this month at Southern Illinois and was put on the disabled list, was activated Tuesday night and looked sharp against Lake Erie, allowing only one hit in six innings.

Had Edwards left the Southern Illinois game only one out earlier, Washington would have had an interesting decision to make with the right-handed pitcher. A one-out earlier exit would have left Edwards with 60 innings pitched, which is a magic number in the Frontier League. Throw 60 1/3 innings and your roster classification is bumped up one level the next season. Stay at 60 and you status doesn't change. Had Edwards been at 60, Washington could have kept him on the DL for the remainder of the season and his status for next season would have remained at L1. Each FL team is permitted a maximum of 7 L1 players and 3 L2 players.

It doesn't matter now because Edwards was at 60 1/3 and threw six more innings, but this is the time of year when you see guys throughout the league being benched to keep their status from changing. Typically, about half the teams in the league do this. The only Washington player who is near a status-change mark is pitcher Zach Groh, who is currently on the DL. Groh, who is an L1, has pitched 57 1/3 innings.

Watch the Wild Things

The Wild Things begin a three-game series tonight at Southern Illinois and the Miners' website offers live video of their home games. You should be able to access the videostream at this site:


Watch the game here.

If it doesn't work, you can go to the Miners' homepage and click on the Minecast link at the bottom of the page. I watched one of the Wild Things' games at Southern Illinois last year and it was a slick (as far as webcasts go) multi-camera telecast with the audio being the Miners' radio broadcast. Mac users might need to download a plug-in to watch the game.