Gwinnett may not have earned the win, but they can’t complain much about the performance of their top prospects as both Drake Baldwin and Nacho Alvarez found themselves contributing on offense. In the lower levels Kevin Kilpatrick Jr. has gone on a heater in Rome, helping them win their third straight game.
(36-41) Gwinnett Stripers 4, (32-41) Memphis Redbirds 6
- Nacho Alvarez, SS: 0-3, 2 BB, .364/.444/.618
- Drake Baldwin, DH: 3-5, .347/.429/.551
- Luke Waddell, 2B: 1-3, BB, 2B, .232/.321/.323
- Zach Logue, SP: 5 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 3.66 ERA
- Brooks Wilson, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 4.13 ERA
The Atlanta Braves prospect duo continues to be unbelievably hot at the plate, and Drake Baldwin in particular hasn’t shown a single sign of trouble since being promoted to Triple-A. Baldwin has maintained the impressive contact rates he showed at Double-A, especially in the later parts of his time, and has come up and hit everything hard for Gwinnett. Baldwin had four hard hit balls in this game, three of those over 100 mph including a 110 mph single, and turned in three hits in the game. Baldwin thus far has as many walks as strikeouts, but my one reservation about his results on the outer third of the plate held critical in this game. With two runners on in the ninth inning Baldwin came up with a chance to make an impact in a key spot, but swung around an outside changeup and rolled over it for a double play. Baldwin’s increased pull rates this season are critical to his success, but there is definitely a hole with his swing on the outer third of the plate that he and the Braves will need to find a solution for to maximize his potential.
Nacho Alvarez doesn’t really have a weak zone in his swing, he can hit anything thrown pretty much anywhere, but he’s been far less consistent at putting up hard contact. A good portion of his early success has been less-than-ideal batted balls finding holes, and still with his swing much of his contact is the opposite way. I think we all felt like that early power surge would prove fluky, and he now has two doubles as his only extra base hits in the past seven games, but that’s also come with more walks to make up for some of the lost impact. Overall Alvarez’s swing decisions on pitches out of the zone have translated well to Triple-A, he clearly has a good feel for location, but the first at bat of this game is a bit of a representation of what we often see from him. Up 2-0 in the count Alvarez got a changeup on the bottom edge of the zone, and rather than spitting on it or taking a swing hunting impact contact he gave a rather average swing and rolled over it to third base. Alvarez rarely takes pitches in the zone, and it seems like pitchers will be able to exploit that to produce weak contact until Alvarez starts to identify his most successful zones and only really attack pitches in those spots early in the count. Keep in mind here that Alvarez is 21 years old and already in Triple-A less than two years after being drafted. I don’t expect him to have a finalized approach, the same as I don’t for Baldwin. It’s just an area of weakness for him that’s followed him throughout most of his career and won’t be as successful at the higher levels where pitchers and defenses are better.
On the pitching end of things the Stripers ran through their veteran guys and had quite a bit of success early on. Zach Logue picked up and took over Bryce Elder’s vacated spot in this round of the rotation, and he was solid for five innings where he produced weak contact and kept the Stripers on top. Finally though he ran out of steam and allowed a two run home run in the sixth inning where he was pulled before recording an out. The bullpen held things down for awhile until Ken Giles got toasted for back-to-back home runs in the ninth inning and took the loss.
Swing and Misses
Zach Logue - 7
(33-37) Mississippi Braves 5, (40-31) Montgomery Biscuits 4
- Cody Milligan, CF: 3-4, 2B, HR, 2 RBI, .239/.298/.374
- David Fletcher, 2B: 3-5, 2B, .256/.283/.302
- Cal Conley, SS: 1-4, BB, RBI, .247/.320/.330
- Ian Mejia, SP: 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 2.45 ERA
- Drew Parrish, RP: 3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 3.98 ERA
The Mississippi Braves are on a bit of a roll, having won three straight games and starting the second half 2-0. Mississippi lost a lot of talent to promotions, yet after all of that seem to be clicking behind Cody Milligan’s recent resurgence and a consistent lineup top to bottom. While power is a problem for this team they turned in extra base hits like crazy this game, with four doubles and a home run as part of their 13 overall hits. Milligan had hit a horrendous patch along with the rest of the offense in May, posting a .454 OPS last month and seeing a drastic increase in strikeouts. Milligan has still been a bit strikeout heavy in June, but suddenly is the biggest power bat on the team. He is running a .333 isolated power with three home runs in 14 games this month, good for an overall 202 wRC+. Milligan has homered in back-to-back games with five extra base hits total in his past three games. Milligans home run in the fourth inning of this one tied the game, and he ended up tacking on the key insurance run with a fifth inning single.
Ian Mejia allowed the most hits he has in a game all season in his final start in June, a bit of a surprise given the lineup he is facing. Mejia has been a buzz saw to right handed batters all season, and facing a Biscuits team with seven righties in the lineup should have been a good matchup for him. Mejia forced 13 whiffs in the game, mostly a result of his polished slider, but was hit hard in the early innings of the game as he tried to settle in. Mejia has had more trouble recently with finding the edges of the zone with his fastball, and while he hasn’t been prone to walks he doesn’t have the stuff to live over the plate too often without getting burned.
Swing and Misses
Ian Mejia - 13
Drew Parrish - 9
(40-29) Rome Emperors 4, (32-39) Winston-Salem Dash 2
- Kevin Kilpatrick Jr., CF: 2-4, BB, RBI, .261/.331/.392
- Stephen Paolini, RF: 1-4, 2B, BB, 2 RBI, .220/.341/.329
- Sabin Ceballos, 3B: 2-5, .275/.359/.383
- Luis Vargas, SP: 5.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 2.01 ERA
- Jared Johnson, RP: 2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 2.43 ERA
It took a while for the Emperors to come out on top in this one, but they rose to the occasion in extra innings to reach 40 wins on the season. After falling to 21-20 near the end of May this team has been on a torrid stretch, winning 19 of their past 28 games behind by far the best pitching staff in the South Atlantic League. Today that group was led by Luis Vargas, who although not at his sharpest managed to get through 5 2⁄3 innings of one-run ball. Vargas ran into some trouble as he walked a couple of guys in the third inning, but overall it didn’t feel like one of those games where he was badly missing spots despite the three walks. He certainly wasn’t finishing at bats as efficiently as he has at times this season, but the Dash really struggled to get a good beat on him after a couple of hard hit balls in the first inning. Vargas finally cracked in the sixth inning as he tried to navigate the lineup for a third time — a skill I don’t think will every develop for him — but his results for most of the game came with a certain air of promise.
The bullpen then had to cover six innings to ultimately win the game, and it was the same guys it has been all year doing the work down there. Rob Griswold and Ryan Bourassa aren’t top prospects, both being undrafted free agents the Braves brought in to create minor league depth, but both have managed to be solid arms to cover innings at the lower minor leagues especially this season. Both currently have ERAs below 2, and combined for 3 1⁄3 innings of scoreless ball. Jared Johnson then came in to cover the final two innings, and while Johnson has been inconsistent he has largely been effective all year. Johnson allowed a couple of tough-luck soft hit singles in the tenth inning that scored a run against him, but dominated the 11th despite an error from Sabin Ceballos to strike out two batters and close out the win.
Ceballos has done well turning his season around at the plate, and he added another two hits in this game. I like what Ceballos has been able to do in recent weeks on the inside half of the plate, as he has been more consistent at opening up and driving those pitches to the pull side where he had a home run on Tuesday. Ceballos has been reaching a bit on the outer half and there really isn’t the all-fields power that his stature and raw strength might indicate, but if he can get more pull side power it’s easier to project the bat at third base. The problem right now is projecting the glove, as I want to like the arm talent and the and first step from Ceballos but he has now made 14 errors this season and is sitting with an .899 fielding percentage. There are flashes of good glove work from him but he doesn’t have the mobility to play in the outfield, and if he isn’t able to stick at third base that’s a tough offensive profile.
On the other side of the coin is Kevin Kilpatrick Jr., a fantastic defensive outfielder who faded after a hot offensive start. After falling completely off the map to having a wRC+ below 100, he has been on an insane heater the past week after making some changes to his setup. Kilpatrick has a 1.152 isolated power over his last six games with more walks than strikeouts, and it’s still so easy to dream on the raw athletic potential here. When Kilpatrick gets hot he gets scorching hot and shows flashes of a major league starting outfielder, but these flashes have been so inconsistent throughout a now long Rome career. Kilpatrick reached base three times in this game and had a stolen base, but the hero of the game ultimately was his partner over in right field. Stephen Paolini had the biggest hit of the game, bounding a seeing-eye double down the left field line that scored two runs in the top of the 11th inning and set up Johnson to close the game down.
Swing and Misses
Luis Vargas - 11
Jared Johnson - 5
(29-41) Augusta GreenJackets 6, (29-41) Charleston RiverDogs 9
- Isaiah Drake, CF: 1-4, .173/.236/.280
- Will Verdung, 1B: 0-3, BB, .232/.364/.297
- Jeremy Reyes, SP: 4 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 2 K, 2.08 ERA
I was looking forward to Jeremy Reyes’s first home start with Augusta, but unfortunately we did not get the good camera angle and had to live with a suite-level shot of the game. So there isn’t much to say about how Reyes’s stuff looked, other than that he really could not locate it to save his life. Reyes had a strong first inning, and sat 94-95 for most of the start, but after that first inning the command betrayed him completely. That said he wasn’t altogether awful, and the two hits he gave up really weren’t great swings especially the opposite field double that seemed more a case of the hitter throwing his bat at a slider and making contact.
Augusta’s offense did give the pitching staff a chance to win this game as they had overall one of their best days, scoring six runs and only striking out six times as a team. Luis Sanchez had three hits, and he has been an interesting one this season. The 20 year old got off to a strong start this season and had a .361 on base percentage in early May, but for weeks absolutely nothing has been falling for him even as he maintains a good strikeout rate. Part of this is Sanchez not hitting the ball hard all that often, but from May 10th to the end of last week Sanchez hit .141 with a .165 BABIP and 21 wRC+. Brutal stuff. Fortunately he has had a little taste of success again with consecutive three-hit games.
Speaking of success Isaiah Drake had another hit in this one, chopping a ball up the middle and then beating it out for an infield single. Drake has maintained his high contact rates lately, though the impact of that contact has dried up quite a bit and he is settling for a lot of opposite field singles. All four of his batted balls in this game went to the shortstop, and so far this season he has only a 24.7% pull rate and a 46.1% opposite field rate. I’m happy to see him make contact, but he will quickly crash back to earth if he doesn’t start going for hard contact more often. Still it’s amazing that he has so quickly gone from the worst hitter in the Carolina League to a consistent on base threat who has now dropped his strikeout rate below 40% for the year.
Swing and Misses
Jeremy Reyes - 6
Isaac Gallegos - 4
