While here at Minor Matters we are primarily concerned with the Thunder and the Yankees organization, we also track down baseball games across the greater NJ/PA/NY region. That brought me to Lakewood last night to check out Roy Halladay's rehab start, plus Phillies top '13 draft pick JP Crawford, who is the first player ever to be drafted and make it to the BlueClaws in the same season. Here's a little video of Crawford helping out Halladay with a nice catch against Hagerstown's Narciso Mesa (not certain the dive was 100 percent necessary, but a nice play nonetheless).



Crawford was 1-for-4 with a run and looked smooth on defense, but I'll need to see more to generate an opinion.

As for Halladay, things could have been worse. Final line: 6IP, 7H, 2R, 1ER, 3BB, 4K. His velocity was only in the mid-to-high eighties, but after the game he said that his surgeons felt that it would continue to improve. He also said that after the fourth inning, he started to get a better feel with his cutter. Here is my story, and some video:





Halladay also had some interesting things to say about the firing of Charlie Manuel and his upcoming free agency:




As for the Thunder, their road trip to New Hampshire and New Britain has been exactly what they did not need as they try to secure the EL East's final playoff spot. They've lost 4 of 5 on the trip and 5 of their last six overall, though heading into Wednesday night's rubber match against the Rock Cats they are still three games up over New Hampshire (the Fisher Cats lost to Portland Wednesday afternoon 4-2).

Shane Greene (6-3, 3.45) gets the ball against major leaguer Cole De Vries (0-2, 2.70).

After Wednesday night's game, the Thunder will play their next eight games in Trenton, with four games each against Portland and New Britain.