I art just returned from my son's Wedding! Finally after eight year relationship! Great time for the family and even minor league baseball had to take a back seat. But of course I've been keeping an eye on the boxes, and have been especially interested in Capel and Plesac. JUST NOTICED AN IMPORTANT FACT ABOUT THOSE TWO STARS OF THE WEEK IN EASTLAKE: Plesac is an anagram of Capel[s]. Pretty remarkable!
But still not up there with our great time in southeast Maryland.

Congrats! Glad you had a great time and are back.

Clippers lose to the MudHens tonight 3-2. Morimando a little better. 6.2 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 6 K. ... Yandy 0-3 with a walk. ... Naquin 0-4. ... Gonzalez 1-4 with a SB. ... Merritt pitches tomorrow.

Akron pounds Harrisburg 13-5. ... F.Mejia finally back to his old self. 3-4 with 2 doubles and a HR. ... Bradley 2-5 with a double, HR, and 4 RBI. ... Papi 1-4 and a walk. ... Chiang pitches tomorrow.

Lynchburg was off today. DeMasi pitches tomorrow.

Captains lose to Dayton 7-2. ... Hillman is quickly losing prospect status in my eyes. Pounded again tonight. 5 IP, 9 H, 5 ER, 0 BB, 3 K. ... Capel 2-4 with a HR. He has been red hot lately. ... Longo 2-4 with 2 doubles. ... Chu 1-4. ... Miniard pitches tomorrow.

Scrappers beat Black Bears 7-2. ... F.Perez 5.1 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 K. ... Draftee Nelson 2.2 scoreless with 3 K. ... Draftee Teaney 1 scoreless with 1 K. ... OscarG 1-5 with a double and 3 RBI. ... Lucas 2-4. ... Wade 2-5. ... Benson 0-3 with 2 walks. What's gotten into him? ... Hentges pitches tomorrow.

AZL Tribe off today.

DSL Tribe dropped a double header today to Cubs. 11-1 and 6-5.

Gonzalez 0-3. ... Lopez 1-3. ... Diaz 1-3. ... Cespedes 1-3. ... Yannuzzi was not good for a change. 3.2 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 5 BB, 2 K.

Gonzalez 2-5 with a double and a SB. ... Lopez 2-4. ... Diaz 1-4 an RBI double. ... De Oleo 1-3 a double.

DSL Indians/Brewers coop lost again, of course, 8-1. ... Kelkboom 0-4.

BA on Monday games:

CLE AA Bradley, Bobby 1B 5 2 2 4 .246 2B (21), HR (21) [82 RBI, a handful behind the leader, he's won 2 RBI crowns]
CLE AA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 4 1 1 2 .214 2B (19), BB (45) [he does everything well at bat except hit singles]
CLE AA Krieger, Tyler 2B 5 2 2 0 .222 2B (22)
CLE AA Mejia, Francisco DH 4 3 3 1 .307 2 2B (21), HR (13) [making final push for Eastern League MVP]
CLE AAA Diaz, Yandy 3B 3 0 0 0 .350 BB (60)
CLE AAA Gonzalez, Erik SS 4 0 1 0 .263 SB (5)
CLE AAA Rodriguez, Nellie 1B 3 0 0 0 .167 BB (44) [had cracked the 170 barrier, it's probably too late for a shot at Mendoza line]
CLE LoA Ice, Logan C 3 0 0 0 .218 [his brief offensive surge is past him]
CLE MAJ Zimmer, Bradley CF 1 0 0 0 .247
CLE SS Benson, Will RF 3 1 0 0 .224 2 BB (21)
CLE SS Clement, Ernie SS 4 1 1 1 .284 [if you an all-singles no-walks offensive player, you'll like Clement]
CLE SS Gonzalez, Oscar LF 5 1 1 3 .289 2B (15)
CLE SS Jones, Nolan PH-3B 0 1 0 0 .298 BB (33) [must be among league walk leaders]
CLE SS Wade, Austen CF 5 0 2 1 .233
CLE AAA Morimando, Shawn 6.2 5 3 3 4 6 4.40 L (10-9) [kind of a typical Morimando line]
CLE LoA Hillman, Juan 5 9 5 5 0 3 6.10 L (6-9) [well, he had a brief stretch of fine starts, but that's past him]

On formal review, Nolan Jones is in a tie for the NYPL lead in walks. With his now bright and shiny .298 average, that means his .413 on base avg is No. 3 in the league. Slugging avg is 456 isn't all that exciting but the rate in August -- ..661 -- is. and it means his OPS of .870 rates 4th in the league.
I wish he were showing at least moderately decent results in the field.

Looking on Capel's split, I was pleased to see that he's brought his strike out rate down from about 37% in April into the 20's for a few months and about 15% in August. The one thing he can't do is steal bases, not for want for trying. He's been caught 40% of his 25 tries with no apparent improvement over the course of the season. That's OK, 4 tools, or maybe even 3, are good enough.

Columbus lost 6-1 to Toledo tonight. ... Wow, Plutko actually pitched well again. Two in a row. 5.1 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 4 K. ... Naquin 1-4. ... Erik G 0-4.

Akron loses to Harrisburg 7-6. ... Chiang stunk again. 5 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 3 BB, 1 K. ... Allen 1-4. ... F.Mejia 1-4 and a walk. ... Bradley 2-5 with a double. ... Papi 3-4 with a double.

Lynchburg beats Astros 6-3. ... DeMasi continues his roll of late. Not too shabby any way. 5.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 0 K. .. 2.90 ERA now. ... Castro 2-3 and a SB.

Lake County was rained out.

Mahoning Valley beat Batavia 5-2. ... Hentges was wild but otherwise very good. 3.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K. .. 2.25 ERA now. Since we lost Pannone it would be nice if Hentges could emerge to give us a lefty starter prospect down there. ... Jones 1-3 with a walk. ... Oscar 0-4. ... Benson 1-3 with a HR. He's doing much better.

AZL Indians beat Angel's 4-2. ... Holmes 1-3 with a triple, walk, and an OF assist. ... Freeman 2-4. Batting .308. ... Cooper 2-4 with a triple.

DSL Indians 7 Cubs 2. ... Garcia 5(IP) 4H 0ER 2BB 5SO. ... Cespedes 4-4 2R HR RBI. ... Torres 3-4 3B RBI

DSL Rangers 5 Indians/Brewers 4. ... Mejia 5(IP) 4H 2R 2ER 1BB 3SO. ... De La Rosa 1-3 R HR 2RBI. ... Jimenez 1-2 R

We kind of forget about Papi, until he occasionally does something noteworthy. His line in AA includes 10 homers, batting 267, OPS 786, by far the best of his career. His experiment in AAA was a bust, hitting 215

Another major step forward for Dylan Baker: 1 scoreless inning and no sustained injury. His role on the 40 man roster seems secure.

Andrew Calica was impressive in his 2016 debut but less so this year; however he's been putting things together nicely of late. His post all-star average is 324 and OPS is 905. Not a power hitter, not much of a basestealer and defensively limited to LF, so still a long-shot prospect, but he can hit.

Nolan Jones flirting with .300. He will probably wind up pretty high on the NYPL prospect lists, I imagine.

Captains playing a double header today to make up for last nights rainout. Game 1 is about to get underway. Plesac is starting game 2.

I see where Akron is getting underway too. They don't have a DH'er though, just playing an early game. Lugo is starting and Mejia will probably be off so can't get too excited.

but Bradley is a pretty exciting player; and Chang could be the best 217 hitter in all of the minors. and Greg Allen is an exciting players although he's not made a lot of headway this season.

BA on Tuesday:

CLE AA Allen, Greg CF 4 0 1 0 .262 CS (2)
CLE AA Bradley, Bobby 1B 5 2 2 1 .248 2B (22)
CLE AA Chang, Yu-Cheng SS 3 1 1 0 .215 BB (46)
CLE AA Krieger, Tyler 2B 4 0 2 1 .225
CLE AA Mejia, Francisco C 4 1 1 0 .306 BB (24)
CLE AAA Gonzalez, Erik SS 4 0 0 0 .256
CLE AAA Rodriguez, Nellie DH 3 0 0 0 .165
CLE HiA Castro, Willi SS 3 2 2 0 .294 SB (17)
CLE MAJ Diaz, Yandy PH-DH 3 0 0 0 .194
CLE MAJ Zimmer, Bradley CF 2 0 0 0 .245
CLE R Freeman, Tyler SS 4 1 2 1 .308
CLE R Holmes, Quentin CF 3 1 1 1 .197 3B (3), BB (6)
CLE R Rodriguez, Johnathan RF 3 0 0 0 .233
CLE SS Benson, Will RF 3 1 1 1 .226 HR (5)
CLE SS Clement, Ernie 2B 3 2 1 0 .285 BB (5)
CLE SS Gonzalez, Oscar LF 4 0 0 1 .283
CLE SS Jones, Nolan 3B 3 1 1 2 .299 BB (34)
CLE SS Wade, Austen CF 3 0 0 0 .226 [last time I bother to copy his line]

CLE AAA Plutko, Adam 5.1 6 1 1 4 4 6.14
CLE MAJ Armstrong, Shawn 1.1 2 2 2 0 1 4.76
CLE R Cooney, Tim 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.00 [not sure if we noted his first return to action last week; he's a rather well-rated lefty we got from the Cardinals, who has missed nearly two years with injury; I think he may have been rated as No. 2 St.L prospect a couple years ago.]