After a couple of poor seasons the Eagles looked to jump ahead of the Great Lakes rivals right off the bat but unfortunately for Olivet, Matt Kemp and company Swarmed in and took care of business with the bats. Having results you would normally see in a full week there was no surpise Arizona took 5 of the 6 hitting categories and pitched just well enough to take a few of the pitching as well en route to an 8-3-1 victory.
Olivet wasn't dis-pleased with the hitting effort however as it would have paced nearly every other team in the league other than Arizona. 2b Kelly Johnson was the standout, scoring 5 runs, hitting 1 hr while driving in 1 with 4 bb to go with a nice .357 batting average. Apparently he likes hitting in front of Jose Bautista, who was so-so (for him) this week even with the dinger and 4 bbs. The other first round selection, Hanley Ramirez, didn't fare so well out of the gates but did end up with 2 runs, rbi, and bb with a hr and sb even with the 2 for 15 start.
On the pitching side of things, Dempster was great and Nolasco was better than expected while Gallardo got rocked and Romero ran into trouble against Cleveland. The bullpen was also shaky which most believe will be one of the best groups in eMLB.
Olivet matches up against Hackensack in Week 2 and will need to get a win under their belt to keep pace with the rest of the Great Lakes League.
What to look for:
Kendrys Morales wasn't expected to make the Eagles lineup until later on in the season but was hitting very well in Spring and started very nicely in week 1, hitting 417. However he failed to produce anything and will need to start doing so in order to stay in the lineup at 1st base.
The Johnson/Bautista combo. If Johnson continues to get on base at the clip he showed week 1, Bautista is inevitably going to produce monster numbers behind him. Look for them to rack up the stats in week 2
The SP Staff: Someone needs to step up in week 2 and help solidify the rotation beyond Dempster. Romero is no ace but if Gallardo is habitually a slow starter he'll be depended on to carry a big load until Yovani gets going. It definitely wont be Homer Bailey who already got hit hard on Monday (Only Yu Darvish did worse, so the playing field stays level heading into Tuesday)
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