SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic-Josh Naylor (Mississauga, ON) quieted the hometown Dominican crowd with one crack of the bat tonight sending a 93 mile-per-hour fastball from top-prospect Huascar Ynoa over the wall in right-centre for a three-run home run to lead the Junior National Team to an 11-0 victory over the MLB Prospects. The game was awarded to the juniors after only four innings, due to heavy rain forcing the cancelation of the remainder of the game.
The MLB Prospects feature some of the top 15 and 16 year-old players on the island that are eligible to sign with Major League Baseball clubs beginning on July 2nd.
Prior to Naylor’s home run, Matt Lloyd (Okotoks, AB) had reached on a infield single before Gareth Morgan (Toronto, ON) lined a single to right field.
The juniors went on to add another run in the inning coming when Ynoa gave-up his third walk of the inning issuing a free pass to JF Garon (Terrebonne, QC) with the bases loaded.
Starter Michael Soroka (Calgary, AB) was impressive from the beginning keeping the Dominican hitters at bay for three innings. Soroka gave-up only one hit, coming with one out in the third, did not walk a batter and stuck out four.
He also had plenty of rest in between the second and third as the juniors benefitted from four walks and four hits in the top of the third including a RBI double from JF Garon, while LP Pelletier (Montréal, QC), Gareth Morgan and Josh Naylor had RBI singles.
Luke Horanski (Dugald, MB) led-off with a single and later scored on a passed ball in the fourth, while Pelletier picked up his second RBI single on the evening to put the juniors up 11-0.
JP Stevenson (Hunter River, PE) took over for Soroka in the fourth and got a fly-out to short and a strikeout before an error at first gave the Prospects their third runner of the game. Stevenson fanned the next batter he faced before the skies opened up causing a rain delay with game eventually being called after only four innings.
DSL Rockies 3 JNT 1
Earlier in the day, at the Colorado Rockies Dominican Complex in Boca Chica, the junior’s fell to the Rockies Dominican prospects 4-2.
JF Garon led off the game with a triple to right field and scored when Matt Lloyd grounded out to first.
The lead was short-lived however, as the Rockies scored twice in the top of the first with two out. First, a double came into count on a single to centre with the runner advancing to second after the ball was mishandled and then two passed balls allowed the runner to move to third and score putting the Rockies up by one.
Starter Brad Smith (Vancouver, BC) went five innings and gave up one earned run, six hits and one walk, while he struck out three.
Kyle Ross (Maple Ridge, BC) took over for Smith in the sixth and an error to the lead-off batter ended up coming around to score after a ground out and two-out double.
The Rockies added another in the eighth and the juniors threatened in the ninth scoring one run after two Rockies’ errors, and got the tying run to the plate, but failed to get any closer.
Garon led the junior’s offensively with two hits and scored one run, while Matt Lloyd had a single with one RBI. Nolan Bumstead (Calgary, AB), Mitch Bigras (Sarnia, ON), Royce Ando (Mississauga, ON) and Peter Hutzal (Calgary, AB) also collected hits.
Up Next: Players and staff will fly home tomorrow. The Junior National Team will reconvene in Toronto from June 29th – July 3rd for workouts at Rogers Centre and to participate in Canada Day festivities as guests of the Toronto Blue Jays. On July 3rd, the team will fly to Varadero, Cuba to participate in a nine-game exhibition series with the Cuban 18U National Team. All games will take place Estadio Victoria de Giron in Matanzas.
In August, a selection camp will be held in Houston to determine the 20 players that will represent Canada at the COPABE Americas 18U World Cup Qualification tournament in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico September 5th-14th…the top four nations in Mexico will qualify for the IBAF 18U World Cup that will take place in Koshein, Japan in September 2015.
