It was a tough night on the system for Atlanta Braves affiliates, but with some notably performances from quite a few of the system’s top prospects. Up in Triple-A Drew Waters and Braden Shewmake were active for the Stripers, while in High-A the farm’s current top bat Vaughn Grissom continues to hit at a high rate. Freddy Tarnok and breakout player AJ Smith-Shawver also had solid outings for their respective teams.
(35-35) Gwinnett Stripers 3, (41-28) Nashville Sounds 8
- Braden Shewmake, SS: 2-3, BB, .276/.330/.405
- Drew Waters, CF: 2-5, 3B, RBI, .264/.310/.436
- Kramer Robertson, 3B: 2-5, .298/.400/.426
- Huascar Ynoa, SP: 0.2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 5.09 ERA
- Victor Vodnik, RP: 1.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 3.38 ERA
A poor start from Huascar Ynoa was too much for the Stripers to overcome as good games from Drew Waters and Braden Shewmake went to waste. Waters was a part of Gwinnett jumping out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning, as his single followed up one from leadoff hitter Kramer Robertson to put runners on the corners with no outs. Gwinnett came away with a run on a Preston Tucker ground out, but were held to just that and fell behind 4-1 going into the second. Waters drove in the second run for Gwinnett on a triple in the fifth inning then scored on a single from Tucker to cut their deficit to 6-1. This was the last the Stripers would score despite recording 13 hits in the game as they left eight runners on base and grounded into three double plays. Waters did strike out in his last plate appearance, but that’s been more of a surprising thing lately as he has a 15.9% strikeout rate in June and only 2 over his past 33 plate appearances.
Huascar Ynoa initially looked to be doing fine in this game and struck out two of the first three batters he faced, but the game quickly got away from him. Four straight runners reach base after this, and a bases-clearing double that made it 4-1 ended his day due to a high pitch count in the inning. This opened the revolving door in the Stripers bullpen and led to a long day of pitching. Victor Vodnik finished out the first inning with a strikeout then allowed a run to score in the second inning to extend the deficit. Brandon Brennan did the same in the third inning before pitching Gwinnett’s first scoreless innings in the fourth. Brandyn Sittinger provided the Stripers with some solid length, avoiding allowing any runs over two innings despite three hits and a walk. The last bit of insurance came at the hands of Brad Brach in the eighth inning, who allowed two earned runs to all but seal the game in Nashville’s favor.
Next Game: 6/25 @ (41-28) Nashville Sounds @ 8:05 PM ET
(29-38) Mississippi Braves 1, (26-34) Montgomery Biscuits 2
- Justin Dean, RF: 0-2, 2 BB, SB, .275/.380/.396
- Cody Milligan, CF: 1-4, 2B, SB, .267/.353/.333
- Yariel Gonzlez, SS: 2-4, 2B, RBI, .232/.300/.398
- Freddy Tarnok, SP: 5 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 4.88 ERA
- Troy Bacon, RP: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 3.27 ERA
It was another rough offensive day for the Mississippi Braves, who have scored just 2.7 runs per game this month while going 6-16. Cody Milligan busted out of the gate with a leadoff double in the first inning, but the Braves failed to score him in the inning and opportunities became slim over the rest of the game. They didn’t have another hit until Logan Brown’s leadoff single in the sixth inning, but fortunately had strong support from the pitching staff. Mississippi went into the top of the ninth trailing 1-0 and Justin Dean went to work, drawing a walk and stealing second base to ignite one final scoring chance. This chance actually came to fruition thanks to Yariel Gonzalez, who doubled home Dean to tie the game 1-1.
Freddy Tarnok may be starting to string together some decent command outings, as in three of the past four he has come out throwing strikes and getting outs. Today he didn’t walk a single batter, though his outing was not without trouble as six got hits against him and kept him on the edge throughout. The lone run against him was not even entirely his fault, as an error from Yariel Gonzalez on a leadoff single allowed the runner to advance to second base, leaving the door open for an RBI single to score him with two outs following a ground out and strikeout. After that RBI he retired nine consecutive batters before a couple of two out hits in the fifth inning had him in a bit of trouble which he worked out of. Troy Bacon matched Tarnok’s efforts out of the bullpen, giving Mississippi two more critical scoreless innings to give the offense more chances to stay in the game. Odalvi Javier pitched a perfect ninth inning, but after Mississippi tied the game he started to get into trouble. A leadoff walk and a base hit put the tying run on third with no outs. Javier got the first out when a ground ball right to second base with Riley Delgado playing on the grass kept the runners from attempting an advance. Mississippi chose not to set up a force play at the plate with an intentional walk and instead pitched to the next batter, and Yariel Gonzalez sailed a throw on a ground ball for a game-ending error that likely would not have gotten the runner anyways due to it being a tag situation. I don’t know why I’m second guessing managerial decisions for a Double-A game between two sub-.500 teams but you’re all just going to have to deal with me on this one.
Next Game: 6/25 @ (26-34) Montgomery Biscuits @ 7:05 PM ET
(36-31) Rome Braves 1, (39-28) Hickory Crawdads 8
- Vaughn Grissom, 3B: 2-4, .301/.388/.467
- Christian Robinson, RF: 1-4, RBI, .256/.343/.367
- Beau Philip, 3B: 1-3, BB, .215/.319/.297
- Royber Salinas, SP: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 2 K, 5.40 ERA
- Lisandro Santos, RP: 3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 3.05 ERA
This game got ugly quickly for Rome, and we all must be thankful for Vaughn Grissom who provided basically the entirety of the team’s intrigue in this game. Rome had just four hits in the game and two of them came from Grissom, who has now gone 29 consecutive plate appearances without striking out. This is not the first long strikeout-free streak for Grissom, in fact it’s his third time going 20+ consecutive plate appearances without a strikeout this season. Despite this he was not involved in the lone run the Braves scored in the game. A hit batter and walk set up a seventh inning opportunity, leading to an RBI single from Christian Robinson that provided the only Braves run.
Royber Salinas was not any better than the performance of the offense, as he gave the Braves just one good inning before completely collapsing the rest of the outing. Salinas struck out two in a scoreless first inning, but a leadoff walk brewed trouble in the second and he allowed three runs to put Hickory on top. Three more walks in the third inning led to another run scoring, and the nail in the coffin was an RBI single with two outs in the fourth inning. While the sixth run was officially charged to him, it’s hard to blame him much when he left a guy on first base with two outs and the reliever Malcolm Van Buren immediately walked three consecutive batters to force the run home. Lisandro Santos was absolutely spectacular in three scoreless innings of long relief, saving the Rome bullpen a lot of pain while striking out five batters. His performance did not matter in any way to the final score, but it was a fantastic outing nonetheless. That cannot be said of Alec Barger, who allowed two runs on four hits in his lone inning of work. Trey Riley managed to throw a scoreless top of the ninth, but given he allowed two walks and a hit it’s hard to call it much of a success.
Next Game: 6/25 vs (36-31) Hickory Crawdads @ 6:00 PM ET
(36-31) Augusta GreenJackets 5, (32-34) Fayetteville Woodpeckers
- Caleb Durbin, 2B: 1-4, BB, SB, .276/.391/.416
- Brandon Parker, LF: 2-4, 2B, SB, 4 RBI, .271/.401/.466
- Cal Conley, SS: 1-2, 2 BB, 2 SB, .234/.295/.402
- AJ Smith-Shawver, SP: 5 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 3 HB, 9 K, 5.10 ERA
- James Acuna, RP: 2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 2.30 ERA
Just keep telling yourself “tomorrow will be better” and you’ll probably be right eventually. Now if you said that yesterday you were very, very wrong, because we have another loss to cap off the bad kind of organizational sweep. Augusta at least gave us hope throughout this one, and started out by scoring a phenomenally Augusta run by loading the bases on a hit and two walks before a two run single by Brandon Parker snuck through the infield to give them the lead. Two innings later the top of the order cut it up again, with Parker driving in two more runs on a double to give Augusta a lead. Parker then scored on two wild pitches and Augusta was off and rolling for a big offensive day. Just kidding, because they didn't have a hit after a leadoff single in the fifth inning. The Fayetteville bullpen shut them down, retiring 15 of the final 16 batters with only a sixth inning hit batter to break the streak. Still, five runs is a lot so let’s check in on our pitching staff and see if they can hold the lead.
Spoiler: Nope. AJ Smith-Shawver had a game that I want to call decent, but really can’t because he hit three batters. He allowed three runs in the game, but it came more due to Fayetteville stringing all of their hits together against him in the first inning rather than continuous struggle. He hit the first batter of the game, then allowed three hits which scored three runs and gave the Woodpeckers a 3-2 lead in the game. Smith-Shawver only allowed one hit over the remainder of the game and didn’t walk any batters, but again he hit three batters with pitches which is not exactly what you want to do. The nine strikeouts for Smith-Shawver were fantastic, and give him 75 on the season in 47 2⁄3 innings. Those 75 strikeouts rank second in minor league baseball among teenage pitchers. He left the game with Augusta holding a 5-3 lead, which did not even last an inning as two errors in the sixth inning led to two runs scoring to tie the game. James Acuna had a solid outing of relief, going two innings for Augusta, but made one big mistake and allowed a go-ahead solo home run in the ninth inning that ultimately proved the critical blow in the game.
Next Game: 6/25 vs (32-34) Fayetteville Woodpeckers @ 5:05 PM ET
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