Minor League Player of the Day – Gregg Downing - 5.1 IP, 2 Hits, 0 Walks, 1 Run, 4 K's. When starter Lindsey Caughel couldn' t make it out of the 4th inning, Downing stepped in and gave the Raptors the relief performance of his life by pretty much shutting down the Osprey offense over the final 5.1 frames. The former 47th round pick didn't have a great regular season with a 5.33 ERA, but the lefty came up big in this must win game.
Rookie Ogden – The Raptors jumped all over the Osprey early as they took a 10 - 1 lead after just 3 innings, then held on for a 13 - 7 win over Missoula in game 2 of the best of 3 Pioneer League championship series. With the series tied one game a piece, Friday's game becomes a winner take all. Jeremy Rathjen got things started with a 2-run homer in the bottom of the first, then Noel Cuevas tripled home Corey Seager, who had doubled earlier in the frame. The big inning game in the 3rd, however, which is when the Raptors scored 7 runs. All 7 of those runs came with 2-outs, and several players contributed including Paul Hoenecke who tripled, and Rathjen who plated 2 more runs with a single to give him 4 RBI's for the night. At the end of the day Cuevas led the team with 3 hits and also had 3 RBI's, while Malcolm Holland and Eric Smith drove in two runs each. On the mound starter Lindsey Caughel was staked to a big lead early in the game, but he ran into trouble of his own in the 4th and was pulled after allowing 6 runs on 8 hits. Gregg Downing came into the game in relief, and after giving up a homer in the 5th he completely shut down the Osprey as he finished the game with 4 innings of 1-hit ball to record the win.
Coming up – The Raptors will look to their ace in the deciding game of the Pioneer League championship series as Ross Stripling will take the mound for Ogden. While the organization has him on an inning limit, he has been going deeper into games as of late and actually threw 6 innings in his last start. Since this is the last game of the season I'm sure everyone will be available out of the bullpen.
Ogden Raptors Box Score (Rookie)
Minor League Central - Daily Dodger Recap