So, a busy day at the park...

The biggest news of the day was that Slade Heathcott has been sent to the Yankees complex in Tampa a day after being placed on the DL with right knee tendinopathy. Hard to imagine Slade making his way back to Trenton this season, which is a shame, because he looked like he was finally starting to put things together at the plate. It's unclear whether his all-out style of play contributed to the injury, but to me this sounds more like a condition that happens over time instead of something that happens when you run into a wall.

Here is what Tony Franklin had to say about it:

“There isn’t much (time left in season), so you can draw your own conclusions on that,” Franklin said. “All the tests and things that will be dealt with will be done in Tampa. They feel it’s significant enough to bring him down, shut him down for a while and find out what the problem is, and figure out a route to go. It’ll probably keep him shut down for a while.”

Also, switch-pitching Pat Venditte is back in Trenton. Check out my story on him here. Nice guy, agreed when I said I thought the rule should be that both the hitter and pitcher declare which side they want to play from independently/secretly to the umpire.

As for the game, the Mikey O'Brien was very solid, Cody Grice and Jose Pirela had home runs, and Gary Sanchez had three hits. Game story here and some videos here.

Here is Franklin on O'Brien:

“Mikey isn’t the kind of guy that’s going to wow you with velocity or things of that nature, but when he’s on he’s down in the strike zone, he’s getting groundball after groundball and his pitches are sinking and moving, and he’s pretty effective that way,” Franklin said.

The Thunder also released their 2014 schedule. As expected, it features lots of games against Eastern League teams.

Also, for anyone interested in visiting New Orleans, I talked to Jeremy Bleich last night about where to find the best po'boy (Bleich grew up in Metairie, La. and went to Isadore Newman, the same high school Peyton and Eli Manning went, and I went to college at Tulane.) We both said Domilise's, but he said that Parkway Tavern had won some sort of food channel cook off. My Domilise's vote stands.

Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't link to some Thunder love on the Colbert Report.