Baseball America’s Aaron Fitt is reporting that Orleans’ Jason Esposito (Vanderbilt) will join Team USA as a replacement for Anthony Rendon. Rendon was injured in Team USA’s game on Wednesday and will miss the rest of the summer.
Esposito was hitting .246 with a home run for Orleans. He was batting third last night and figured to be a key piece to the puzzle down the stretch. Big loss for the Firebirds.
Larry Tye, author of the award-winning book “Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend,” will be speaking at Spillane Field in Wareham before Friday’s game between Wareham and Falmouth. He’ll be signing and selling copies of his book afterwards.
This Saturday the 26th, the Falmouth Commodores will stage a parade from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. The parade runs from the Gus Canty Rec Center and ends at Shore Street, with a pep rally at Peg Noonan Park.
The parade will feature the Falmouth High School marching band, cheerleaders and color guard and, of course, the Commodores and team mascot Homer. Fans are encouraged to attend. Autographs and Commodore T-Shirts will be available for purchase.
With Team USA trials scheduled later than they’ve ever been, everybody involved is in uncharted territory. Even USA Baseball, whose hand was apparently forced by some scheduling factors, doesn’t love the situation.
In terms of the Cape League, many USA invitees have been playing on the Cape since day one, which is a major departure from the norm. But if they go to the trials, they’ll be leaving relatively soon. The trials are scheduled to start July 6.
I’ve read some things that indicate once a player leaves for USA, that’s that, since the Cape League’s final rosters are due before the USA roster gets released. But League Commissioner Paul Galop confirmed to me this week that an adjustment has been made. His e-mail:
Since Team USA does not start their tryouts until July 5th, and they are not selecting their team until July 11th, we face an interesting dilemma that we have not had before. So, since we have almost all of the Team USA invitees on our rosters, we have decided to do something unique. The date for submission of our final rosters is July 1st. This year, that doesn’t really help anyone. So, we have backed up that date until 11:59 PM on July 11th so we can bring the players back that either do not make the Team USA roster or would rather play here. We are hoping this provides enough flexibility to help out these players as well as our team rosters.
I think that’s a smart move. A significant number of players will not make Team USA. For them, for the teams, and for us as fans, it’s great that they’ll have a chance to come back to the Cape, if they so choose.
It looks the Cape League will be using a new system for statistics this season, and one of the cool parts of it is a transaction section.
The latest transaction is an interesting one.
Arizona State lefty Josh Spence has been activated by Cotuit. Spence burst onto the scene as a junior-college transfer last year and was drafted in the third round. He went back to school but hasn’t pitched at all because of an injury. He was drafted this year in the ninth round.
If he’s healthy, he could be a really fun player to watch. Spence doesn’t have a big fastball but he has a huge repertoire of pitches he can throw for strikes.
A lot of new names have popped on rosters in the past few days as teams scramble to fill spots.
Here are a few that caught my eye:
LSU star Anthony Ranaudo has popped up on the Brewster roster.
The junior was projected as a top-five pick in the preseason but an injury and some inconsistency sent him down draft boards. After going in the supplemental round to the Red Sox, Ranaudo said he would come to the Cape. Brewster is the destination.
As I write this, we are about 72 hours away from the first game of the 2010 Cape League season. Cotuit visits Wareham on Sunday night at 5 p.m.
The forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms. After last year, weather gods, can we just not let that happen? Please? I’m planning on making the drive over to Wareham. It should be a good night.
In terms of the blog, all the early looks are done. There’s a link on the right sidebar to all of them, if you want to do some light (or heavy) reading. Before the opener, I’ll post college stats for every 2010 Cape Leaguer. I’m also planning on writing a general season preview.
After that, play ball. Summer’s here.
According to Jim Kleinpeter of the New Orleans Times Picayune, Red Sox supplemental first-round pick Anthony Ranaudo is planning to come to the Cape this summer.
Ranaudo said he plans to pitch “a few” innings in the Cape Cod wooden bat league since the injury set him back this season.
“I feel like I’m just hitting my stride, ” said Ranaudo, who pitched effectively in his last five outings. “I reassured everybody that I’m feeling 100 percent healthy and I think I proved that the last four or five or six times out that I pitched.
“That’s another reason I’m going to Cape Cod this summer from the development and arm standpoint, get in shape, prove I’m healthy and that I’m still the same pitcher that I was.”
Ranaudo played for Y-D in 2008 and took last summer off because of a heavy workload. He came into the college season as a potential top-five pick but an injury and some shaky outings sent his stock slipping.
No word on which team Ranaudo will play for, or how long he’ll be there. But it’ll be interesting to see him back on the Cape.
Ten Cape Leaguers, past and future, were among the 17 players named Louisville Slugger First-Team All-Americans today.
Indiana’s Alex Dickerson (Wareham ‘09 & ‘10) and Arizona State’s Zack MacPhee (Bourne ‘09 & ‘10) played last year and are slated to come to the Cape again. The other former CCBL’ers are Chris Sale (Y-D ‘09), Alex Wimmers (Bourne ‘09), Cole Green (Wareham ‘09), Yasmani Grandal (Brewster ‘08) and Gary Brown (Orleans ‘08 & ‘09).
The other 2010 Cape Leaguers are Danny Hultzen (Hyannis), Paul Hoilman (Cotuit) and C.J. Cron (Cotuit).
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