BlueClaws giving Shore a reason to get excited
BY GEORGE ALBANO
Staff Writer

There's quite a buzz stirring around FirstEnergy Park and the Lakewood BlueClaws these days.

Then again, that's nothing unusual. Fans on the Shore have been excited about New Jersey's professional Class A baseball team ever since its inception in 2001.

But this season does seem to be a bit different than other years at 2 Stadium Way. The buzz in the air is a little more fever pitch. The players seem to have a little more bounce in their step. Even the fans appear to be a bit more excited.

And with good reason. Now in their sixth season, the Lakewood BlueClaws are actually starting to think about dare we say it? the playoffs.

OK, maybe we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. After all, the BlueClaws, the Philadelphia Phillies' Class A minor league affiliate, are only six games into the second half of the South Atlantic League season, but they're off to a fast start. And after the way they finished the first half, there is reason for optimism.

But, remember, this is a team that has never even come close to making the playoffs in its first five years of existence. In fact, the BlueClaws have had only one winning season, 2004, when they posted a 70-67 mark. And last year Lakewood won only 56 games for its fourth losing season in five years.

There wasn't much reason, either, to think this year was going to be any different, at least not after the BlueClaws opened the 2006 season with nine straight losses. Even a new manager, Dave Huppert, who came to Lakewood with an impressive minor league track record - 11 winning seasons in 18 years as a manager - and a stint as a third base coach with the Washington Nationals last season, didn't seem to make a difference. Not at first, anyway.

But Huppert quickly righted the BlueClaws' ship as they followed the 0-9 start with five straight wins and eight victories in their next nine games.

In fact, Lakewood went 37-23 the rest of the first half to finish 37-32 overall and fourth place in the eight-team Northern Division. The finished seven games behind first-half winner Lexington, but only a half-game behind third-place Delmarva and two games in back of runner-up West Virginia.

"I just think a lot of our players had to get used to things. They had to get acclimated to the league," Huppert said. "We got off to a slow start with the bats. It was the first time for a lot of guys, being their first season, and they just had to get their feet on the ground and get going."

As the second half of the season began last weekend, the BlueClaws picked up right where they left off. They won three of their first four games, including Monday night's 4-1 victory over the Lake County Captains in the first of four straight night games against the Cleveland Indians' Class A affiliate at FirstEnergy.

Going into Tuesday night's game, the BlueClaws had won seven of their last nine games and were 12-7 in the month of June. They added two more wins on Tuesday and Wednesday night before dropping a 6-2 contest to te Lake County Captains of Thursday. Lakewood's 5-2 start in the second half is good enough for sole possession of first place in the Northern Division, one game up on West Virginia.

"Confidence breeds winning, and I believe they have their confidence now," Huppert said of his players. "They understand after the first half what it takes to win. But mainly confidence is the No. 1 thing. They believe in themselves now. They learned how to win one-run games, which is a huge help. Six of our first nine losses were one-run games and we didn't know how to win them. We didn't execute in a lot of ball games under pressure.

"But now we've learned what it takes, and we're executing and winning close ball games."

And with a 43-34 overall mark heading into Friday night's action in Hagerstown, M.D., prospects of a second winning season is looking more and more promising.

"After the slow start, we've been playing a lot better," said Ben Wagner, the BlueClaws' media relations director. "Everybody around here is talking about a winning season and making a legitimate run at the playoffs.

"The bar has definitely been raised," Wagner, now in his third season with the team, added. "Not only does the team expect it, but the fans expect it, too."

Ah, yes, the fans. Lakewood has led the South Atlantic League in attendance in each of its first five seasons, including a record 444,607 in 2005.

In fact, the BlueClaws reached two million fans faster than any professional baseball team in New Jersey, as well as any franchise in SAL history. No wonder, Lakewood was the recipient of Baseball America's Bob Freitas Award for overall excellence in minor league baseball in 2005.

So far in 2006, going into last Monday night's game, the BlueClaws had drawn 190,779 in 32 home dates, an average of 5,961 per games, second in the league to Greensboro (6,293). With school now out, the turnstile numbers at FirstEnergy should grow even more.

"June, July and August are all huge months attendance and promotions-wise," Wagner pointed out. "The community continues to support us.

And this season the BlueClaws have given their loyal supporters plenty to cheer about. Especially in the pitching department. Their June 24 2-0 win over the Hagerstown Suns in Maryland was Lakewood's 12th shutout of the season, tops in all of minor league baseball. It also tied the team record for shutouts in a season, and it's still only June.

"Our pitching has definitely carried us so far," Huppert said of his staff, which currently ranks second in SAL. "We don't have a great offense, so we've had to rely on our pitching. We've been able to squeak out some runs to win, but our No. 1 thing is our pitching."

Lefty Matt Maloney leads the staff with a 8-4 record with a 1.44 ERA and has 99 strikeouts in 87.1 innings. Josh Outman, who hurled the first seven innings of the June 24 shutout win, is 5-5 with a 3.59 ERA and 81 strikeout in 82.2 innings.

Then there's Carlos Carrasco, the 19-year-old Venezuelan native who pitched seven shutout innings last Monday night to raise his record to 5-4 and lower his ERA to 2.26. He now has 89 strikeouts in 83.2 innings and is in the top five in most of the SAL's pitching categories.

How good has Carrasco been? Back on May 12, he tossed eight shutout innings against Hagerstown, allowing only three hits while fanning nine. In his next start, he recorded a career-high 10 strikeouts against Delmarva.

There's no doubt Maloney, Carrasco and

Outman give the BlueClaws as good a top of the rotation as there is in the South Atlantic League.

"When we had Kyle Kenrick, we had four outstanding pitchers," Huppert said. "But then he was called up to Clearwater (the Phillies' other Class A team)."

But while pitching has carried the BlueClaws, they have also been getting contributions on offense from several players. Like outfielder Jeremy Slayden, who leads the team with a .282 batting average, and has 18 doubles and a .464 slugging percentage. Second baseman Clay Harris tops the club with 10 homers, 42 RBIs, 20 doubles and a .469 slugging percentage.

Lakewood's hottest hitter of late, however, has been Mike Spidale, who the Phillies recently signed as a free agent and entered Friday's action 23-for-59 for a sizzling .390 average .

"He's not a surprise, though," Huppert said. "He hit .300 in Double A so he's an experienced player and a professional hitter.

"Jeremy Slayden is also swinging the bat good. He puts the bat on the ball and drives it. And Clay Harris is a big RBI man."

Huppert, who has developed a number of players in his two decades as a minor league manager who reached the big leagues, sees some potential future major leaguers when he looks at this year's Lakewood roster.

"There's always a few," he said. "Our pitching staff's got a few, especially those three starters. I also like (catcher) Lou Marsan and (outfielder) Greg Golson, and Slayden and Harris will go as far as their bats take them."

No less than 10 former BlueClaws have already made it to the majors, seven of them with Philadelphia, including three on the Phillies' active roster. One of them, starting first baseman Ryan Howard, led all National League rookies last year with 22 home runs, and is among the league leaders this season with 27 HRs and 68 RBIs heading into Friday night's action.

Howard made big news recently with his two-home run, seven-RBI game against the Yankees, which had to remind BlueClaws fans of the night he went 3-for-5 with five RBIs on July 18, 2002, against Hickory. Or a month later when he homered in three straight games for Lakewood.

The BlueClaws have even had a former player of theirs make it to the World Series. Right-handed pitcher Ezequiel Astacio pitched for the Houston Astros in last year's Fall Classic. He won 10 games for Lakewood in 2002 and 15 for Clearwater in 2003, before being traded to Houston in a 2004 in a deal that brought reliever Billy Wagner to the Phils.

So in less than six years, the Lakewood BlueClaws have already made their mark, both in the minors and majors. But this year seems a little different. There's not only a buzz in the air at FirstEnergy Park, but perhaps a winning season and maybe even a playoff berth.