• Sometimes, even we forget that we have clients that aren’t pitchers.  Ben Billingsley, currently with the Everett Aquasox of the Seattle Mariners organization, hit a homerun last night, which is his 3rd of the season.  Not bad for the guy who is known for his defense and speed on the bases.  Billingsley had a short stint in Triple A earlier in the year.
• On the other side of the country, Eric Valdez, got the save for another Seattle Mariners affiliate (Pulaski).  In 1 inning of relief, he struck out two batters.
• Kyle Gunderson, usually inserted as the closer, came into a tight 3-2 game between the Jupiter Hammerheads and St. Lucie Mets.  He pitched a perfect inning to pick up his second hold of the season.
• Last night, the Potomac Nationals moved into a tie for first place in the Carolina league.  The P-Nats won the league last year, with Dan Leatherman being a major contributor in the playoffs.  Leatherman is once again pitching great in the latter half of the season.  Last night, he pitched the 9th inning, giving up no runs.  His ERA is now a very impressive 3.13 in 54.2 innings pitched (highest amongst P-Nat relievers).
• While Kyle McPherson was charged with the loss in last night’s game against the Hudson Valley Renegades, he did pick up his fifth quality start in his last six outings. McPherson went 6 innings and gave up only 3 runs, 4 hits, and struck out 2.  He did not give up a single walk, improving his K/BB ratio: 39/6.

Kyle Gunderson bounced back from a couple of rough outings to get his 8th save of the season for the Jupiter Hammerheads.  He struck out 1 batter in his inning of relief.

Ryan Kelly also picked up the save in his appearance for the West Virginia Power.  Along with starting pitcher, Rudy Owens, Kelly shutout the Lake County Captains.  Kelly pitched three scoreless innings while earning his 5th save of the year.

Congrats goes out to Ben Billingsley, who hit his first homerun of the year for the Everett Aquasox.  It was a solo shot that helped Everett in its win against the Eugene Emeralds.  Tonight, Nick Czyz will get the start for Everett.  On the season, Czyz has a 1.59 ERA in two starts.

Baseball

• Dan Leatherman – Last night, he picked up the win for the Potomac Nationals.  His final line was: 3.2 IP, 5 hits, 2 ER, 0 BB, 1 K.  This improves him to 2-0 with a 5.32 ERA on the season with the High A Potomac Nationals.  Leatherman has not walked a batter in his last 7 outings, which spans 12.2 innings.
• Pete Parise – Parise threw 2 perfect innings (1 K) in Springfield’s loss last night.  Parise has now thrown 11.1 consecutive scoreless frames over his last 8 outings and has a 0.59 ERA over his last 10 outings.  His season ERA is 2.86 in 34.2 IP (26 K’s).  We showed you a powerpoint slide on him yesterday.  His stat line has only gotten better since.
• Kyle Gunderson – Recently, Hi-A Jupiter placed Kyle on the reserve list.  Kyle is healthy and looking forward to returning back to the active list soon.  The Marlins put him on the reserve list as a precautionary measure to give his back some rest.  Since joining the Jupiter Hammerheads in a trade for Logan Kensing, Gunderson has a WHIP and ERA of 0.90 in 10 IP.
• Kyle McPherson – In his last 4 starts, McPherson has 3 wins and 1 no-decision. In the 22.1 IP over that span, Kyle has racked up 13 K’s and only walked 2 batters.  His overall record on the year with the West Virginia Power is 4-1.
• Ryan Kelly – R.Kelly has provided solid relief for the West Virginia Power thus far.  His ERA is sitting at 3.06.  When A-Rod was making his way back to the majors with rehab assignments, he could not get a hit off of R. Kelly.
• Brendan Murphy – Brendan got off to a scorching hot start with the Kalamazoo Kings of the Frontier League, but has cooled off a bit ever since.  He still has 2 HR in 8 games played, along with 6 RBI.
• The rest of our boys: Tommy Johnson, Nick Czyz, Ben Billingsley, and Zach Rosenbaum are doing very well in Extended Spring Training and will be on their respective teams’ Short Season A teams.

Bowling

• Our latest bowling client is Jason Belmonte.  He is currently in his home of Australia making the rounds with the press, but will be back in the U.S. shortly to bowl in the PBA’s Summer Series.  We have big plans for Belmo.  In the meantime, become a fan on his Facebook page.

Football

• Rulon Davis is doing well with the Denver Broncos.  The team needs all the help it can get on Defense and Rulon is just the type of guy who can give them that edge they so desperately need.
• Andrew Johnson had a very successful mini-camp tryout with the Cleveland Browns, but unfortunately, was not retained by the team.  We are now searching for other options for Drew.
• Kevin Grant is considering various options, but we still believe that he belongs in the NFL.  We continue to find the right fit for the former 4-year Akron LB.

Basketball

• We have recently added a bunch of new clients including, Terrrance Woodbury (leading scorer at UGA for the past 2 years), John Gilchrist (former standout at University of Maryland), and Jamarcus Ellis (University of Indiana – named Honorable Mention All Big-Ten).  All of them are receiving considerable interest in the United States (NBA/NBDL) and overseas.

Coaches

• Been working on a new website.  Jason and I have been given important positions in a particular coaches association.  More information will be posted in the near future.

Entertainment

• Hopefully you know about the new EntertainmentAgentBlog.com.  The new site alone, has allowed us to receive more leads for our clients.  Additionally, we are starting to move away from being “agents” to our clients, to taking on more of a managerial role.

Kyle picked up his fourth save of the season and lowered his ERA to 0.90.  He has 4 saves in as many opportunities.

Dan Leatherman has also quietly been coming back strong from a short early season slump.  Last night, Leatherman went one inning, struck out two while giving up no runs, and lowered his ERA to 5.17.

Leatherman and Gundy were teammates on Potomac not too long ago.  We hope that both of them continue to have success at their current level and at higher levels in the future.

Last week was tough for the Jupiter Hammerheads.  Thursday’s game was rained out, Friday’s double-header was rained out, and on Saturday, the team lost both of its games.  However, on Sunday, Jupiter picked up a solid 3-2 win over Fort Myers.  And Gundy logged his second save with the Hammerheads, going an inning with two strikeouts and maintaining his respectable 0.00 ERA in 7 total innings with Jupiter.

While I would love for Gundy to get moved up, it’s nice that he is currently in Florida.  I’m excited to be visiting him again on Tuesday.

Most impressive about Gunderson’s outings has been the way that Gundy is getting his outs.  Almost all batters are grounding out, which is the preferred method for pitchers.  Last night, all three outs were groundouts.

The bad part is that Jupiter lost 6-0.  The good, is that I got to witness Gundy have another hell of an outing.  He pitched 2 innings, worked many batters into 0-2 counts, and once again gave up no runs.  Five of the six outs came on groundballs.  On the season, Gundy has an ERA of 0.00 through 10.1 innings (4 innings with Jupiter, since being traded from the Potomac Nationals).  Not bad for a kid taken 1,396th overall in the 2007 draft.

The Double A Cardinals did not fair any better last night.  They lost to Tulsa, but Pete Parise put in some solid work, going 1.1 innings of perfect ball, striking out 2 batters.  Parise’s ERA is inflated because of one rough outing this year.  Besides that one game, Parise has been a very solid contributor in Springfield’s bullpen.