AA-Erie Sending Four to the 2011 Eastern League All-Star Game

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The AA-Erie SeaWolves will be sending four players to the 2011 Eastern League All-Star Game in Manchester, New Hampshire on Wednesday, July 13th. Jacob Turner, Chance Ruffin, Francisco Martinez and Justin Henry were all rewarded with an invite due to their outstanding first half performances.

Jacob Turner–the Tigers top prospect–is currently 3-2 with a 3.07 ERA. In 93 2/3 innings this season Turner has racked up 77 strikeouts while walking just 25 batters. Opposing batters are hitting just .226 against Turner this season. Do I really need to go on about how awesome Jacob Turner is?

Chance Ruffin recently earned a promotion to AAA-Toledo and will not be participating in the All-Star game. Prior to his promotion though Ruffin was 3-3 with a 2.12 ERA and 10 saves for the SeaWolves. Ruffin also racked up an impressive 43 strikeouts in 33 inninings for Erie. I see Ruffin getting a call-up later this season, even though he is currently not on the Tigers 40 man roster.

Francisco Martinez was batting just .179 at the end of April. The top prospect, third baseman looked overmatched and appeared to be in store for a long disappointing season. Since then, the 20-year-old Venezuelan has raised his batting average to .286. Martinez has hit 10 doubles, 2 triples, 7 HR and 40 RBI for the SeaWolves. Martinez continues to adapt to much older competition, proving that he is in-fact a top prospect in the Tigers organization.

Justin Henry has flown under the radar a bit this season. The 26-year-old outfielder is batting .322 with a .432 on-base-percentage in 202 at-bats this season. Henry has accumulated 12 doubles, 2 triples and 14 stolen bases so far this season. Henry was selected by the Detroit Tigers in the ninth round of the 2007 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Mississippi.

Congratulations to all of the prospects on their All-Star nod!

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