I’s add pair of pitchers

By Bill Kiser
Kannapolis Citizen
The Kannapolis Intimidators picked up two more pitchers from the Chicago White Sox’s minor league spring training camp last week.
However, when the two will be able to make any contribution to the team is still a question.
As the Intimidators were preparing for their season opener in Greensville (S.C.), White Sox officials announced April 3 that pitchers Juan Moreno and Willy Mota had been added to the roster, with both immediately going on the seven-day disabled list.
Moreno will be a familiar face to many of the Intimidators’ current players – he spent last season in Great Falls (Mont.) on the White Sox’s rookie-level Pioneer League team, along with 13 others now on Kannapolis’ roster.
There, Moreno went 6-4 in 16 starts with a 2.39 ERA, and 77 strikeouts and just 11 walks in 901⁄3 innings. He led the league and the White Sox’s minor league organization in ERA, and was tied for first in the league in strikeouts and second in innings pitched.
Those numbers were good enough to have the 21-year-old Dominican Republic native named the league’s pitcher of the year and earn him a spot on the Pioneer League’s end-of-season All-Star Team.
In 2006, his first year playing in the minors, Moreno went 7-5 with a 4.60 ERA in 13 starts with Bristol (Tenn.) of the rookie-level Appalachian League. He was tied for second in the league in wins and third in innings pitched (721⁄3), and led the team in strikeouts with 65.
Mota, 22, was acquired along with current Intimidators pitcher Miguel Socolovich by the White Sox in late January in a trade with Boston for David Aardsma.
A free-agent signee by the Red Sox in 2002, Mota spent his first three years in the minors as an outfielder, making it as far as Boston’s Double A Southern League team in Greenville. However, he saw very little action there.
Last year, Mota began working as a pitcher in the Red Sox’s organization, going 5-3 in 17 appearances at Lowell (Mass.), Boston’s short-season A team in the New York-Penn League. There, he had a 2.65 ERA with one save and 22 strikesouts in 272⁄3 innings.

Around the SALLY League
(BULLET) Asheville pitcher Cory Riordan hurled the first complete-game shutout in the minor leagues last week as the Tourists beat Lexington (Ky.) 2-0 on April 4.
The 21-year-old righthander, a sixth-round pick in the 2007 Draft, struck out six and walked one in his South Atlantic League debut.
“It feels good to go out and put up a win like that,” Riordan told the Asheville Citizen-Times. “I was able to establish my fastball early and started changing it up after that.”
(BULLET) Augusta (Ga.) turned the minor leagues’ first triple play of the season last week in the third inning of the GreenJackets’ 3-2 loss to Greensboro on April 4.
With runners at the corners and no outs in the top of the third, first baseman Thomas Neal snared a line drive by Emilio Ontiveros for the first out, then dove on first base to put out Jameson Smith.
Neal then ran across the field and flipped the ball to Augusta third baseman to put out Adam Howard, who had run towards home plate on Ontiveros’ liner.