In terms of wins and losses, last night was not the best for the Braves’ minor league system as their affiliates went a combined 1-3. Darius Vines was brilliant over six innings despite Mississippi’s tough loss, Vaughn Grissom has now reached base in 45 straight games, and Drew Campbell had a four RBI night for Rome. Lets get into the games.
Gwinnett Stripers 8, Memphis Redbirds 6
- Braden Shewmake, SS: 3-5, 2B, 2 RBI, R, .698 OPS
- Alex Dickerson, RF: 2-5, 2B, 2 RBI, .713
- Freddy Tarnok, SP: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 5 K
Gwinnett managed to get the Braves’ farm system on the board despite a less than stellar start from Freddy Tarnok as they took down Memphis by the final score of 8-6. While Tarnok’s debut in Triple-A was quite efficient, Freddy had more trouble putting guys away on Saturday and he started getting knocked around a bit in the fifth inning when he was clearly fatigued. Just didn’t quite have his best command or stuff. The Gwinnett bullpen did a really good job until the ninth inning where Jacob Webb gave up a three-run homer to make the game far more interesting than it needed to be, but he did manage to secure three outs to get the win for Gwinnett.
It was a team effort on offense as five different Stripers drove in runs for Gwinnett and four different Gwinnett batters had multi-hit games. Leading the charge was Braden Shewmake who had a needed good game at the plate with three hits including a double while driving in a pair of runs. Alex Dickerson got in on the fun with a pair of hits of his own while also driving in two runs. Chadwick Tromp, who has periodically looked like Babe Ruth down there at Gwinnett, connected for his 10th homer of the season while also walking three times.
Mississippi Braves 1, Montgomery Biscuits 2 - F/10
- Vaughn Grissom, SS: 1-5
- Hendrik Clementina, C: 1-4, HR, RBI, .729 OPS
- Darius Vines, SP: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 10 K, 4.31 ERA
Darius Vines struck out 10 batters over six scoreless innings, but Mississippi’s offense couldn’t get anything going and the Braves ultimately got walked off in extras by the final score of 2-1. After some rough starts in June, Vines has turned in a fantastic month of July so far with a 1.09 ERA and 28 strikeouts in 24.2 innings pitched. That’ll play. Indigo Diaz gave up a game-tying solo homer in the seventh inning and Odalvi Javier, who has been excellent out of the pen this season, hit a batter with the bases loaded (they were only loaded because of an error on Vaughn Grissom) to give Montgomery the game.
Not much to talk about on offense as Mississippi’s sole run game courtesy of a solo shot off the bat of Hendrik Clementina. Vaughn Grissom did secure one of Mississippi’s four hits to extend his on-base streak to a staggering 45 games. He is hitting .412 so far in Double-A which we think is pretty swell.
Rome Braves 6, Winston-Salem Dash 9
- Drew Campbell, CF: 1-3, 2B, 4 RBI, .708 OPS
- Cal Conley, SS: 1-2, 2B, RBI, 3 BB, 3 R
- Javier Valdes, C: 1-4, HR, RBI, BB, .865 OPS
- Roddery Munoz, SP: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 5 R (2 ER), 3 BB, 5 K, 4.37 ERA
Some less than great defensive play cost Roddery Munoz and the Braves early and the Dash kept the pressure on in route to a 9-6 victory over Rome on Saturday. The errors by the recently promoted Caleb Durbin and Javier Valdes (plus a couple other plays that probably should have been made) shortened Roddery’s night considerably, but he was most certainly not at his sharpest with his command, either. RJ Freure then came on in relief and had his second straight rough relief outing as he only recorded a single out. At that point, the score was 8-4 and the writing was on the wall, although the offense did make things interesting late.
On offense, Drew Campbell had a productive night at the plate despite only registering one hit as he drove in four runs thanks to some sac flies plus a two-run double. Cal Conley continued his hot start at the plate in high-A with a double and three walks while also scoring three runs. Caleb Durbin, who debuted in high-A on Friday, got his first hit at the level which was nice to see as well. Javier Valdes rounded out the offense with a solo homer in the eighth inning to try to keep Rome in the game even though they ultimately fell short.
Augusta GreenJackets 5, Columbia Fireflies 6
- Victor De Hoyos, C: 1-4, 2B, 3 RBI, .563 OPS
- Braulio Vasquez, 1B: 2-3, 2B, R, .700 OPS
- James Acuna, SP: 2.1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 3.44 ERA
Despite a five-run fifth inning, Augusta could not put the Fireflies away and Columbia’s rally late doomed the GreenJackets in a 6-5 loss. James Acuna got the start in this bullpen game for Augusta and, um, it did not go well. In fairness to him, one of the earned runs charged to him was an inherited runner scoring off of Peyton Williams, who was also not good, so it looks slightly worse than it was. The moral of the story on the pitching side here is that its hard to win games when your staff walks nine batters AND you don’t miss bats AND you make a couple of errors behind said pitching staff AND you can’t control the running game.
All of Augusta’s offense came in the fifth inning where they managed to put up a five spot. A big chunk of that was a bases-clearing double off the bat of Victor De Hoyos. Francisco Floyd and Braulio Vasquez each had multi-hit games for Augusta with the rest of the lineup struggling in this one. Augusta’s roster saw a lot of changes right before and after the draft, so it will be really interesting to see which members of the 2022 draft class join this roster that could use some reinforcement here in the coming weeks.
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