I’m sure everyone has been clamoring to hear my analysis of the Las Vegas 51s/Sacramento Rivercats tilt I dangled before you prior to my 14+ hour odyssey back to Korea. Well, I’ll have you know that between the time I’ve lived in Korea, and Oakland and New York City prior to that, I haven’t had many opportunities to actually take a minor league game in live. My loss for sure.

In my younger years I frequently attended Redwood Pioneers games. The Pioneers were a class A affiliate of the California Angels. The stadium wasn’t far from where I played Little League and we’d sometimes head over there after Saturday games. The team played host to a number of luminaries…well, Kirk McCaskill and Mark McLemore anyway.

People often say this about minor league baseball stadiums, but Raley Field in Sacramento feels like a scaled down version of a big league ball park. I’d certainly take it over a number of the stadiums here in Korea. It seats just over eleven thousand, and then offers grass seating from center-right to right field which brings the capacity to just over 14,000. It was supposedly free piggy bank day for the first 1,500 fans, but those were long gone by the time we got in. I would actually call that figure of 1,500 into question — unless adults were stealing them. I saw that once at an Oakland A’s beanie baby giveaway. But I digress.

The Rivercats are the returning PCL and Triple A champs, although as most people know, this doesn’t mean a whole lot to people outside the fanbase. Because of all the trades Billy Beane has been making these days I’m sure the Rivercats (the RCs) lineup has varied a lot over the last few months. Indeed a quick look at the team’s transaction wire over the past month finds 23 moves in July alone.

I was excited to see Eric Patterson, who the team just brought over from the Cubs in the Rich Harden deal. Patterson was leading off and playing second. Offensively, he didn’t disapoint picking up a single (plus two SBs), a triple, two runs scored and an RBI to lead the team to a 5-2 win. Patterson is now hitting over .420 since the trade.

But I did notice one thing on Patterson that’s been a knock on him for a while, which is that he’s not a great fielder. I saw him make a pivot on a pretty routine double play that looked downright high school-level. I noticed on a couple other ground balls his hands and feet don’t really work together, which is odd since he’s so quick otherwise. Mark Ellis is a free agent and we all know how that works in Oakland, but I can’t help but wonder if Patterson ought to be moved to the outfield.

Starting the game was Dan Meyer, who folks might remember from another famed Beane deal that in a way started it all — the one that sent Tim Hudson to the Braves for Juan Cruz, Charles Thomas and Meyer. Wow, what a return. Meyer just turned 27 and would be flirting with a bust label had he not had a few arm injuries over past few years to keep the debate open. He was terrible in a late season callup last year and his 2008 numbers in Triple-A haven’t been anything great — although he’s been throwing pretty well over the last month.

He ended up getting the win, throwing seven shutout innings, scattering five hits and striking out eight. Again, I cant’ say I was all that impressed. He was around 89-90 most of the game and his offspeed stuff is pretty standard. He looked like a solid Triple-A pitcher to me. My guess is that if he keeps pitching the way he has been he’ll get another callup before the end of the season, which might be make-or-break for him.

The opposing pitcher was Joe Meloan, a 5th round pick in 2005 by the Dodgers. Like Meyer he’s big (both are 6 ft. 3 in and push 230 lbs.), and like Meyer he touches 90. The speeds were off the stadium gun, so who knows if they’re perfect. Meloan is 5-10 with an ERA that dipped under 5.00 due to his solid work on Sunday. I’d be surprised if he got a late season callup, although I should mention that outside of this season in Las Vegas he’s been solid througout his minor league career.

The player for the 51s I was most excited to see was Chin-Lung Hu, who’s gone from potentially starting for the Dodgers, to a guy hitting .159 for the Dodgers, to a guy, following Sunday’s game, hitting .176 for the 51s. I think Hu is already a major league-level fielder and his speed is there. His batspeed looked pretty good too. He’s just 24 so there’s still time to develop. He did pick up a nice single to center.

One more guy I’ll mention is Jason Repko, who I’ve always kind of liked as a player, but seems destined to be one of those AAAA types. He’s fast, has a great arm in right, and will typically post around a .380 OBP. But he has little to no power and will probably always be at best a guy who can come in late in games as a pinch runner or defensive substitution. Repko is a GWSCPIA, where he might be able to hit 15 HRs and steal 20-25 bases.