Day: May 8, 2008

Shorebird of the Week – May 8, 2008

John Mariotti talking to the fans before last Sunday's game against West Virginia.
Shorebirds hurler John Mariotti pitches in an April contest against Hagerstown - the first of two successive contests where he gave up no earned runs.

This week’s Shorebird of the Week unfortunately saw no action in the past week, but John Mariotti hopefully will return later this season to his earlier form which saw him established as an ace among Shorebirds pitchers. Our Opening Day starter, John was a late scratch from his scheduled start last Friday against Lexington. After a subpar outing in his last start (5 earned runs in 7 innings at West Virginia on April 26th), any adverse signs of physical trouble would be good reason to allow John to skip his next turn. Unfortunately, on Saturday Mariotti was placed on the inactive list, joining four of his teammates.

While John was not a high draft pick (18th round in 2007), the Canadian native and product of Coastal Carolina University has put together an outstanding body of work thus far on his young career. Even with the rough outing against the Power, he’d won three straight starts for Delmarva and given up just 19 hits in 31 innings on the season, striking out 24 while allowing just 5 walks – a superb 0.77 WHIP. These numbers maintain the trend suggested last year when John ran through the New York-Penn League with just a 2-2 record but a nifty 1.46 ERA. (One caveat – the ERA was helped by an unusually high number of unearned runs; 12 of the 18 runs he allowed in 37 innings pitched were unearned.) On the other hand, a good 25-12 ratio of strikeouts to walks and eyepopping 6.3 to 1 ratio of ground outs to fly outs amassed last season as an IronBird suggested John had the stuff to be an ace for the Shorebirds this season.

It’s a shame that a guy honored as the SAL Pitcher of the Week back on April 21st ran into injury trouble so quickly afterward. Let’s hope the 23 year old Mariotti recovers quickly and gets back to mowing down opposition batters, who were hitting only .171 against him this season.

Carnival of Caring – a recap

Last Sunday the Shorebirds held their first annual Carnival of Caring in conjunction with the United Way. Here’s just a few photos from the event, mostly of the booths where groups put themselves before the public eye.

Just so you don't forget who the sponsor of the event was...

Outside the stadium, the Big Brothers/Big Sisters were already set up along with the definitely for-profit Comcast.

Coastal Hospice had a nice booth with their information.

Next door, the Worcester Youth booth was a little more lively.

Sadly, I don't recall who had this booth - for some reason it escapes me. I guess I should have snagged a pencil.

Sharing a space were Delmarva's Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.

Working my way across the concourse, the Maryland Food Bank had a good setup. Ever try to stack mac 'n cheese boxes? Or get your face painted?

The Red Cross and Easter Seals shared space as well. I tried to guess how many pieces of candy were in the jar but I guessed wrong.

More candy could be had at the Life Crisis Center booth.

I believe this was the booth that belonged to MAC, Inc. I found out that my putting skills are sorely lacking these days, Tiger Woods I'm not.

Bruce Bright of the United Way welcomed the crowd. He also was lucky enough to throw out the first pitch.

For these organizations, they got the chance to build a little bit of awareness – unfortunately, the attendance Sunday was a little on the small side, just 2,092. But it’s 2,000 more people that know a little bit about the services provided by these fine charities and groups than maybe knew about them before coming in. I also enjoyed the fact I could get in two hours before game time on a nice day and snap a few extra Shorebirds pics – one of them was of tonight’s Shorebird of the Week.

Being a first-time event, I’m sure the Carnival of Caring will get bigger and better as the seasons progress. Also encouraging is seeing these two fine community organizations who both deal with hundreds of thousands of Delmarva citizens a year teaming up to promote and strengthen each other.