Three out of four Twins have excellent games!
SYDNEY 4, MELBOURNE 1 IN SYDNEY
Twins: James Beresford (Melbourne) was 3-for-4 with a double. JaDamion Williams (Sydney) was 2-for-4 with an RBI. Tim Atherton (Sydney) pitched seven innings, giving up one run on five hits and no walks with four strikeouts.
Game summary: Melbourne scored its lone run in the first. Sydney took the lead with three in the sixth and added an insurance run in the eighth.
Melbourne: Brad Harman was 1-for-3 with a double and a walk. Kable Hogben (Arizona) retired all four batters he faced.
Sydney: Trent D’Antonio (Miami) was 2-for-3, scoring once and driving in one. Boss Moanaroa (Boston) was 2-for-3 with an RBI.
BRISBANE 9, CANBERRA 5 IN BRISBANE
Twins: Logan Wade (Brisbane) was 0-for-3 with a walk.
Game summary: Canberra scored one in the top of the fourth, but Brisbane responded with seven in the bottom of the fourth. Canberra cut it to 7-5 in the top of the seventh, but Brisbane added two insurance runs in the bottom of the seventh.
Canberra: Jeremy Barnes was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer and scored twice. Adam Buschini was 2-for-4 with a double, scoring once and driving in two.
Brisbane: Brad Dutton was 3-for-4 and scored once. C. J. Beatty was 2-for-4 with a two-run homer and scored twice.
ADELAIDE 9, PERTH 4 IN PERTH
Game summary: Adelaide scored four in the sixth to break a 3-3 tie.
Adelaide: Jeremy Cresswell was 3-for-5 and scored twice. Quincy Latimore (Pittsburgh) was 2-for-5 with a double and three RBIs.
Perth: Josh McGee was 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Aaron Bonomi was 2-for-4 with an RBI.
And 1/13 will forever be remembered as the day of the exclamation point!
More seriously, though- is James Beresford going to be any good? His stats through AA-level (23 years old) are not flashy, but they seem to be pretty consistent from level to level- OBP .330-.350, SLG averaging right around .300. If he's capable of playing decent defense at second, that seems like enough offensive production to call him up soon, right?
Given the competition, if he has a good year he might get a shot. I'm pretty skeptical about him, though. A .266 average with a .644 OPS in AA doesn't seem likely to translate into much at the big league level.
And that's really the only reason I was wondering. Since Jamey Carroll's big league stats last year were a .268 average and .660 OPS (and he was arguably the best middle infielder the Twins had), I'd hope a younger, cheaper version would get a chance at some point. Hey, we can call him Jamey Beresford if that would help!