Weekly Preview - Week of July 1

A look ahead at this week's games

By: Robert Pimpsner

 July 1, 2007 - After a successful second week of the 2007 season, the Staten Island Yankees have a week of mostly home games before they head upstate to face the Batavia Muckdogs.

Tonight the baby bombers will be facing the Hudson Valley Renegades in game 1 of a three game home and home series.  Angel Reyes and Nick Chigges are the probable pitchers for tonight’s game.  Reyes has had a tough start to the ’07 season after coming back from injury.  His control has not been there for him, walking 9 batters in only 3 innings of work this year with an ERA of 12.00.  Chigges has made three appearances for the bombers, two of them were starts.  He has walked 4 batters but has struck out 13 in 9.1 innings with an ERA of 4.82.

Tomorrow night the baby bombers are heading up to Fishkill, NY for the second game of the series with Gabe Medina and Adam Olbrychowski are slated to take the mound.  Olbrychowski made his debut against the Aberdeen Ironbirds a few days ago, he pitched 2.2 hitless innings while striking out 2 batters.  Medina appeared in 11 games this season for Staten Island, only starting one the season opener against Brooklyn.  His ERA is 1.15 with the bombers and has 13 strikeouts.

The bombers would return home on Tuesday night facing the same Hudson Valley Renegades.  Dellin Betances would be most likely to get the nod for the bombers.  Also scheduled to pitch that day is Craig Heyer.  Betances, is the Yankees third top prospect according to Baseball America.   He has pitched fairly well in his time with the SI Yankees, giving up 6 earned runs in 13.1 innings.  He started all three games he appeared in.  The young right hander has 16 strikeouts on the year which is good for second in the NY-Penn League.

The Battle of the Boroughs is set to resume on July 4^th, fireworks are sure to happen as Zach McAllister is scheduled to make his first appearance at home this season.  John Axford is also slated to make his first appearance in front of a home crowd in 2007.  The two teams would battle it out the next night in Brooklyn with Reyes and Chigges scheduled to pitch.  The bombers would conclude this home stand with a Friday night bout against the ‘Clones with Medina/Olbrychowski taking the mound.

What to look out for?

            David Williams, Justin Snyder, and Luis Nunez are batting above .300 for the season, all three been with the Yankees since opening day.  Williams leads the pack with a .349 average, and has gone hitless in only 2 games this year.  Justin Snyder is right behind him, batting .345 with 1 home run this season.  Luis Nunez is batting .317 this season.  He is tied for the team lead in triples and is second on the team in doubles.

            The Yankees received several new additions, Taylor Holiday joins the bombers from UC Irving, and he is batting .389 in his time with the bombers, with two doubles and two stolen bases.  Matt Morris and Isaiah Howes have also recently joined the bombers position players.  Justin Segal is a recent addition to the pitching staff, and has yet to make his professional debut.