TRENTON – While it wouldn’t have come close to topping this year’s list of marquee rehab starts, Jeff Marquez’s scheduled appearance last night did continue an interesting recent trend of long-forgotten alumni finding their way back to the capital city.

Instead, the game was postponed by torrential rain and lightning, and will be made up today as part of a doubleheader of two seven-inning games that will begin at 6:05 p.m.

Over the last four seasons, Marquez is the fifth player to re-enter the fold after spending significant time elsewhere in the sport. It’s not an illustrious list, but it includes outfielders Noah Hall and Justin Christian, as well as current Trenton relievers Kanekoa Texeira and Brad Halsey.

That’s to say nothing of Justin Pope, the Thunder’s coach who last pitched for the Thunder on Sept. 3, 2007 before returning to Waterfront when the team kicked off its home schedule on April 14.

When he finally toes the slab tonight, it marked the first time since Aug. 28, 2008 that Marquez has taken the mound at Waterfront Park in the regular season.

In the 1,087 days between appearances, Marquez has been traded to the White Sox in the package that brought Nick Swisher – as well as Texeira – to the Yankees, and pitched two seasons with Charlotte, Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate.

The Yankees claimed him on waivers on June 8, three days after he was cut by Chicago. He pitched four innings this season for New York before hitting the disabled list with shoulder inflammation.

“For them to keep an eye on me and notice that I’m on waivers,” Marquez said. “I felt like that was a good opportunity for me to come back. At the time, they needed pitching up there in the bullpen. That little time I was up there I felt like I did a pretty good job, and hopefully I’ll get back there.”

If he is to get back to the Bronx, it will have to happen before Tuesday, at which point he will fall into a sort of transactional limbo. Should the Yankees decide they don’t need his services, which, considering they’ve acquired Raul Valdes, Scott Proctor and Aaron Laffey in recent days, seems likely, then Marquez’s immediate future will become uncertain.

Because he’s out of minor league options, and has been since the season began, he’ll be placed on waivers, from which teams will have 72 hours to claim him and place him on their major league roster. If nobody claims him, he can choose to finish out the year in the minors with the Yankees, or shut it down and prepare for free agency.

For now, his travels have taken him back to Trenton, and considering the success he’s had here, that’s not such a bad thing.

“It feels good to be here to be around guys, to be around a team, rather than being down there in Tampa (in the Gulf Coast League),” he said. “I was here in ’07 and a little bit in ’08 when we won the championships back to back – lot of good memories here.”

NOTES: Marquez will start the first game of tonight’s twinbill, and will be followed by Graham Stoneburner. They’ll be opposed by Mike Ballard and Tim Bascom of Bowie. … Manager Tony Franklin said before the game that third baseman Brad Suttle was likely done for the season. … Reliever Wilkins Arias is on his way back from a brief stint in Scranton. To make room, Halsey will be placed on the 7-Day disabled list. … It is unclear who will replace Marquez in the rotation after this turn. Cory Arbiso, Josh Schmidt, Kei Igawa and Arias seem like likely candidates.

In the spirit of Jeff Marquez's return to Trenton this evening, I decided to do a little research. Marquez finds himself back at Waterfront Park after leaving the organization for a time, and he's not the only player to do so in recent memory. In fact, since I've been in New Jersey, I can count five players who have returned to the Thunder after spending time elsewhere in either pro or indy ball.

Those five are: Marquez, Brad Halsey, Justin Christian, Noah Hall and Kanekoa Texeira.

With that in mind, I sat down and looked up how many days each man went between
regular-season appearances at Waterfront Park. Here's how it breaks down:

Halsey - 2,841 days (Aug. 31, 2003 - June 12, 2011)
Marquez - 1,086 days (Aug. 28, 2008 - Aug. 19, 2011)
Christian - 1,051 days (June 21, 2007 -May 8, 2010)
Texeira - 698 days (Sept. 5, 2009 - Aug. 5, 2011)
Hall - 627 days (Sept. 3, 2007 - May 23, 2009)

And, as a special addendum, there's Justin Pope, the team's do-it-all coach and its former pitcher:

Pope - 1,318 days (Sept. 3, 2007 - April 14, 2011)

As speculated, then unspeculated, here by yours truly, Jeff Marquez will start Friday's game against the Bowie Baysox. I guessed he would be coming this way, but re-considered when I saw he was moved to the 60-Day Disabled List earlier this week.

I figured that meant his injury had gotten worse, and would prevent him from coming north. Then I realized that it may simply have been a roster-shuffling move, and it wouldn't necessarily keep him from a second stint in Trenton.

Because he's considered a major league rehab, no move will be required to get him a place on the roster.

A former first-rounder and a part of the trade that brought Nick Swisher to the Yankees, Marquez has pitched five innings in the bigs, including four with the Yankees this season after he was claimed off waivers from the White Sox.

Marquez was a part of the 2007 and 2008 Thunder teams that won back-to-back Eastern League Championships.

After four days in sometimes rainy, sometimes sunny Virginia, I'm back in action. Not much happened while I was gone, did it? Oh, right, some stuff did occur.

For instance ...

Dellin Betances was promoted to Scranton. This makes sense. He pitched very well his last time out, and his velocity was hitting the upper-90s. He had been throwing a much higher percentage of fastballs in recent days, an indicator, I think, that the Yankees may use him as a reliever in the near future.

With his promotion, the Thunder's rotation is left with a 6-foot, 8-inch hole to fill. As it stands, here are Trenton's five starters:

1. Shaeffer Hall
2. Graham Stoneburner
3. Steve Garrison
4. Craig Heyer
5. ????

There are two in-house candidates for the elusive Four Question marks Of Doom spot -- Cory Arbiso and Kei Igawa. Arbiso is starting tonight in the second game of the doubleheader with Erie, so you can probably count him out at least for Friday.

Igawa just came off the shelf, where he'd been since June 23, so he'd be fresh as a daisy on Friday. That said, he's been markedly better as a reliever with the Thunder this season -- not that it really matters to the guys who make these types of decisions.

The other, more interesting candidate is Jeff Marquez, who was with the team way back in 2008, my first year of coverage. He's working his way back from injury, and is currently with the Tampa Yankees. He last pitched on the 13th, so he'd be on five days' rest.

Because Marquez is on the 40-man roster, no move would be needed to get him on the Thunder's roster on Friday. This is key, because the team is currently carrying the maximum 24 players.

Additionally, Austin Romine was activated off the team's disabled list this afternoon. Inflamed disks in his back put him out on August 3rd. Tonight's game will be the first he's played in exactly two weeks. Don't expect him here for long, however. He'll get the bump to Scranton once Jesus Montero is ready to take the first car up to the Bronx.

Corban Joseph missed three consecutive games after having a stye on his eye taken care of. My sister dealt with one of those at one point, and I remember her saying that they were no fun at all. Though he wouldn't admit, I'd bet it hindered his performance some.

The Thunder also dropped two of three to the Harrisburg Senators over the weekend, including one that was lost when Bryce Harper hit a 480-foot walkoff home run off of Ryan Pope on Friday.

As it stands, Trenton is, at 60-60, in a tie for second place in the Eastern Division with the Reading Phillies. Lurking just a half-game back is New Britain, who also could overtake both Reading and the Thunder for the wild card.

If the Thunder are going to make the playoffs, they're going to have to beat some of the best competition the circuit has to offer. After their quartet with Erie, they have seven games with division leader New Hampshire, three with Western Division frontrunner Bowie and eight with the Rock Cats.

UPDATE: Welp, I missed on that one, folks. Jeff Marquez was placed on the 60-Day DL and most certainly not be starting against the Baysox on Friday. Igawa leads the race.

TAMPA, Fla. – The Thunder found themselves with a nice offensive boost yesterday, even if it was only in an intrasquad game against the Triple-A work group.

Yankees designated hitter Jorge Posada didn’t make the trip to Fort Myers with the rest of his teammates. Instead, he found his way across the street to the minor league complex, where he took his hacks against some of his former Grapefruit League teammates.

He collected a single against Kei Igawa before the game was called off after six innings.

…

Lance Pendleton, at times the ace of last season’s Thunder staff, was returned to the Yankees yesterday. The Astros chose Pendleton with the 17^th pick of the most recent Rule 5 draft. He has already been assigned to Triple-A Scranton, where he will most likely work out of the bullpen.

With Trenton last season, the right-hander went 10-4 with a 3.61 ERA and 133 strikeouts. He also allowed just 95 hits and 45 walks over 120 2/3 Double-A frames before being promoted to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in early August.

With the Astros in the Grapefruit League, Pendleton was battling for a spot toward the back of Houston’s already shaky starting five. Ultimately, though, spotty control earned him a trip back the Yankees.

Pendleton walked eight men in 7 2/3 spring innings, including a bases-loaded free pass to Russell Martin on March 2 that gave the Yankees a walk-off win.

…

Austin Romine, who is looking more and more like the probable Thunder catcher on April 7 in New Hampshire, poked his first home run of the spring yesterday, a solo shot off of Minnesota’s Chuck James in an eventual 7-6 Twins win.

Austin Krum, another player likely to open the season with Trenton, collected three hits yesterday, including a double off of former Yankees hurler Carl Pavano. Krum also made two errors on one play in center field, a missed catch followed by a bad throw to the plate.

Thunder alumni Wilkins Arias, Josh Schmidt, Eric Wordekemper and Pat Venditte also saw action out of the bullpen in the loss.

…

During yesterday’s action at the complex, Yankees principal owner Hank Steinbrenner made a cameo. George’s son, clad in a suit, walked between the four fields and into the team offices. He did not speak to the media.

…

The White Sox yesterday waived pitcher Jeff Marquez, a member of the 2007 Eastern League champion Thunder and, along with Jhonny Nunez and Wilson Betemit and a part of the deal that sent outfielder Nick Swisher to the Yankees.