Guardians Baseball Insider

July 23, 2012

Columbus Clippers

The Tribe was over half way through a season drowning and the lineup and players in this box score were unfortunately not the help the franchise needed in 2012 and the future. In fact, everyone in this game for Columbus, is out of baseball in 2020.

The two biggest performances from the Clippers 14-9 win over the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs were a pair of five RBI performances from none other than legend Vinny Rottino and catcher Matt Pagnozzi.

Who?

Rottino had a brief cup of coffee with Cleveland in 2012 and Pagnozzi had various moments in the majors, but none in Cleveland.

Pagnozzi’s day started with a two run homer in the second, an RBI single in the third, and another two run homer in the seventh.

Rottino drove in his five runs with: a sac fly in the fourth, a two run double in the sixth, and a two run double in the eighth.

Tim Fedroff also contributed two hits as did Jason Donald, who was in CF on this day. Both are gone from affiliated ball despite being at the top of the organizations’ minor league depth chart this year. Matt LaPorta, Russ Canzler, Cord Phelps, and Jared Goedert, all players thought to play a various amount of roles for Cleveland at some point, didn’t contribute much and wandered around the minors after this.

Jeanmar Gomez, who started this game and allowed eight runs (six earned) in 5.1 innings, and Tyler Sturdivent who pitched two scoreless innings, were the last two names in affiliated ball, are out of baseball in 2020.

It may speak to Cleveland’s collection of minor league prospects over the previous three and four years to this season and a change where they are now.

BOX SCORE