The Rock Cats' June Swoon

Rocky the Rock Cat: Proud to be
an American

The New Britain Rock Cats find themselves in the middle of a tough stretch of baseball. They lost last night, 8-1, to the Altoona Curve, and only tallied 6 hits all evening -- 3 from Evan Bigley, which is good for him -- but that leaves much to be desired. Here's what I wrote for the TwinsDaily Tuesday Minor League Recap:

"NEW BRITAIN 1, ALTOONA 8
"The Rock Cats continued their slide in the Eastern League standings, getting hammered tonight. Logan Darnell was charged with the loss, throwing 5 innings, and allowing 4 earned runs (6 total) on 10 hits. He struck out 1. Daniel Sattler (recent St. Paul Saints signing) made his AA debut tonight. In 2 innings of work, he gave up 1 run on 3 hits, striking out 2. Blake Martin allowed 1 run in 1 inning of work, allowing no hits, but walking 3 and striking out 2.

"Like the [AAA Rochester] Red Wings, the Rock Cats only got 6 hits all evening. Top prospect Oswaldo Arcia had a debut he would probably like to forget. He was 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts. Oh well; he'll be back tomorrow and probably much better. Evan Bigley was the best offensive player tonight, going 3-for-3 with a double and an RBI. Bigley is likely to lose playing time to Arcia, so he is probably feeling motivated to play well when he gets the opportunity. Aaron Hicks returned to the lineup after being out about a week with an ankle sprain. He was 1-for-4. Deibinson Romero and James Beresford each singled for New Britain. Romero also had the only walk of the evening for the Rock Cats."

You can read the rest of the report here (if you are at all interested in the Twins minor league system, I highly recommend checking this report out each morning on TwinsDaily -- in just 2-3 minutes of time you can have a good overview of what's happening in the entire organization).
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Now, let's take a look more specifically at what has happened in June to New Britain. In 16 games this month, the Rock Cats are 4-12. Twice they have lost six games in a row, including the current streak they are riding. In these most recent six games, New Britain has scored 10 total runs (1.66 runs per game), while allowing 28 runs (4.66 runs per game). In the earlier stretch of 6 straight losses, the numbers were somewhat similar: 18 runs scored (3 per game), and 33 allowed (5.5 per game). It doesn't take a math genius to realize that it's tough to win when you are scoring, on average, about 3 runs less than you are allowing.
 
Additionally, in the most recent 6-game skid, the Rock Cats have achieved double digits in hits only once, and that was in a game that took 12 innings to decide. In this same stretch, they have hit only 1 home run (Nathan Hanson), 7 doubles, and 2 triples. When this team was winning in April and May, it never lived and died by the home run, but more power would be nice. Hopefully, with the return of Aaron Hicks to the lineup after being out one week with a sprained ankle, and with the recent promotion of top prospect Oswaldo Arcia to the team, the Rock Cats will be injected with some new life.

This appears to be a stretch where both the offense and the pitching is to blame -- it's not as if New Britain is scoring 10 runs a game and losing, or as if the pitching staff is tossing 2-hitters and simply is not getting any run support. The baseball season is so long that every team is bound to have these stretches of games where the guys simply aren't getting it done on both sides.

As of today, the Rock Cats are in third place -- 5 games out of first place -- and currently are two games above .500, at 35-33. The Trenton Thunder, at 40-28, are in first place, and they come to New Britain next week (Tuesday through Friday)  for a 4-game series that represents a good chance for the Rock Cats to make up some ground that they have lost in June.

Top Prospect Oswaldo Arcia Promoted to New Britain

New Rock Cats outfielder Oswaldo Arcia

It was announced this morning that Oswaldo Arcia, an outfielder in the Twins organization, has been promoted from the Ft. Myers miracle to the Rock Cats. I haven't written too much about Arcia, mainly because I haven't seen him play at all in person, but he is generally considered a top 5 prospect in the Twins system -- a player to be excited about. Here's something else to be excited about: he just turned 21 this May, making him almost a year-and-a-half younger than Aaron Hicks, who will turn 23 in October -- an age that is generally regarded as young from AA level baseball. As I mentioned earlier today, the Rock Cats could use some more offense, and Arcia might be just what they need.

The Twins signed Arcia, a native of Venezuela, in 2008, and he has quickly accelerated through the minor league system. He was batting .352/.420/.704 in Low-A Beloit last season before being promoted to the Ft. Myers Miracle mid-season. In 2 months of action this season in Ft. Myers, Arcia's batting line was .309/.376/.517. In 207 at-bats for the Miracle, he had 7 home runs, 3 triples and 16 doubles, as well as 31 RBIs. Taking a look back, in 2011, after his mid-season promotion to Ft. Myers, he logged an almost identical number of at-bats -- 213, to be precise. In that partial season, his slash line was .263/.300/.460, with 8 home runs, 2 triples, 14 doubles and 32 RBIs. It was nice to see the batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage all increase in 2012.

I think some interesting things are going to happen in New Britain over the coming weeks. There is a glut of outfielders (or guys that can play in the outfield) in New Britain. There's Hicks, who is still considered a top prospect but has not exceeded expectations this season; there's Rene Tosoni, who has major league experience but isn't playing very well down here; there's Joe Benson, recovering from wrist surgery and needing to find his swing again; there's Evan Bigley, who is 25 and in his second full (third partial) season with New Britain, and has not put up numbers to justify a AAA call-up; and there's Mark Dolenc, 27 and struggling through his third full AA season. Even Nathan Hanson -- swinging a great bat lately -- has played 6 games in left field this season.

There are just too many outfielders on this team to give everyone playing time, especially considering that Hicks, Arcia and Benson are all considered "top level" Twins prospects that will command playing time -- and I might add Chris Herrmann into this conversation because he has to be added to the 40 man roster after this season and has shown himself capable of playing left field on days when he is not catching. In other words, there are too many outfielders for the number of available positions and innings. Arcia has played right field exclusively this season at Ft. Myers. Hicks and Benson are pure center fielders. So, when healthy, the 3 can co-exist in the same outfield (it just means that one of Hicks or Benson would have to play left field). But it seems inevitable that at least one other outfielder will have to be demoted, and this isn't even factoring in other additions that may be made to the Rock Cats roster (including today's addition of former St. Paul Saints pitcher Daniel Sattler to the New Britain roster).

Congratulations to Oswaldo Arcia, and we look forward to seeing you in action soon!

[UPDATE: Shortly after publishing this article, I was informed that Mark Dolenc was released by the Twins. This partially solves some of the playing time issues, and is also tough news for Dolenc, who I have heard is nothing but a professional and an extremely nice guy. I hope he catches on somewhere else.]