Braves Minor League Recap: Darius Vines throws six strong innings

If you were looking for excitement from the Braves’ minor league system on Saturday, you unfortunately didn’t get much of it as both Gwinnett and Mississippi took losses. Darius Vines put together another very solid start for Gwinnett while both the Stripers and the Mississippi Braves struggled offensively. Let’s get into the games.

Gwinnett Stripers 3, Montgomery Biscuits 5

Box Score

• Hernan Perez, LF: 2-4, RBI, 2 SB, R, .747 OPS
• Jake Marisnick, CF: 0-2, 2 HBP, SB, 2 R, .496 OPS
• Darius Vines, SP: 6 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 2.93 ERA

Gwinnett jumped out to an early lead, but the bullpen faltered late and the offense struggled to scrape together runs as the Stripers fell by the score of 5-3. Darius Vines was on the mound for Gwinnett and he put together another very solid start for the Stripers. Since he was promoted to Gwinnett back in early August, one area where Vines had taken a bit of a step back in is his strikeouts, so it was nice to see him average a strikeout per inning in a start where he threw fairly deep into the game. He also has yet to give up a home run since getting promoted to Triple-A which is a very welcome sight as well. Unfortunately, Victor Vodnik would give up a run once Vines was out of the game and then Roel Ramirez gave up two runs in the eighth innings thanks, in part, to three walks in the inning that ended up being the difference in the game.

As for the offense, well...at least Hernan Perez had another decent game at the plate as he had two hits, two stolen bases, and drove in a run. Gwinnett’s other runs came on a Rylan Bannon groundout and then a run scored on a strike em’ out, throw em’ out double play where Jake Marisnick scampered home. As it turns out, it is hard to get much offensive going when you only hit five singles and only walk once in a game.

Mississippi Braves 0, Montgomery Biscuits 4

Box Score

• Riley Delgado, 3B: 1-3, .671 OPS
• Arden Pabst, C: 1-3, 2B, .770 OPS
• Nolan Kingham, SP: 5 IP, 8 H, 2 R (1 ER), 0 BB, 5 K, 5.54 ERA

No reason to linger too long here as Mississippi managed just two hits in a 4-0 loss to Montgomery. Nolan Kingham got the start for Mississippi and he had to work around a fair number of baserunners although he did do a good job overall of limiting damage. One of the two runs that scored on his watch came on a throwing error by catcher Arden Pabst on a throw to third base. The bullpen bent a little bit too far this evening, in particular Indigo Diaz who had a hit and a pair of walks in his inning of work, as a sac fly and a sacrifice double play added on to Montgomery’s total, but the bigger culprit this evening was the offense.

It is hard to win baseball games when you only record two hits and that is the problem that Mississippi ran into on Saturday. Arden Pabst had the only extra base hit in the entire system on Saturday with a double and Riley Delgado recorded Mississippi’s only other hit. Justyn-Henry Malloy did reach base via a walk, but was otherwise quiet. Drew Lugbauer, who has hit a bunch of home runs this year but has done little else but that, went 0-4 with two strikeouts. Its hard to hit 28 home runs in the minor leagues and still have an OPS of .767, but Lugbauer has managed to pull it off thanks to hitting just .211 this season.