It wasn’t the best of days for the Atlanta Braves affiliates, as they lacked a standout performance from their prospects and Ian Anderson had his worst game at Triple-A so far. Augusta is about to get interesting though, as the promotions of Garrett Baumann and JR Ritchie to Rome have opened the door for draftees — notably Cam Caminiti and Carter Holton — to make their professional debuts later this week.
(64-64) Gwinnett Stripers 6, (67-59) Columbus Clipper 7
- Nacho Alvarez Jr, 3B: 0-3, 2 BB, .306/.423/.509
- Drake Baldwin, C: 1-4, BB, RBI, .308/.420/.476
- Ian Anderson, SP: 4 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, 4.84 ERA
- Hayden Harris, RP: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 7.31 ERA
It was a rough day for Ian Anderson on the mound, and even though he did manage to settle in after a terrible first where he struggled to find the strike zone he took a step back from where he was in his previous starts. Notably Anderson’s velocity in this game was over a mile per hour slower on average than it has been in previous games, and where he has done a solid job of commanding his fastball in recent games he was scattering them throughout most of this start. This was Anderson’s lowest average fastball velocity in his Triple-A starts, and the optimistic view would be that he is probably reaching some sort of fatigue wall after being pushed to 90+ pitches in each of his last four starts. Hopefully that is the case, and fortunately despite some bad location this game he wasn’t hit hard after allowing two home runs (both on fastballs) within the first three batters of the game. . His changeup was as good as ever forcing both weak contact and swing-and-miss and he relied on the pitch to get him through four innings. Anderson had little feel for his slider in this outing and he backed off of the usage more in this start.
The Stripers almost pulled off a miracle comeback, but fell short in the ninth inning. Gwinnett had scratched back two of the runs heading into the ninth, but Ken Giles undid that progress in the top of the inning when he allowed two runs on a home run. Gwinnett’s veteran hitters made a run, with Andrew Velazquez being the top performer in the game. Velazquez has blown past his career high in home runs and added another in the third inning of this game, then in the ninth had one of three Stripers doubles in the inning. Alejo Lopez had the final one, driving in JP Martinez for the fourth run of the inning to put himself, the tying run, on second base for Chadwick Tromp. Clippers center fielder Angel Martinez made a critical defensive play to end the game, laying out to make a play on a line drive in the gap from Tromp that would have tied the game had it fell. Drake Baldwin had a tough day at the plate, rolling over pitches in three of his at bats and flying out to left field in his other at bat. Nacho Alvarez drew a couple of walks but fastballs were a bit of a nemesis for him again as on both occasions he put the ball in play he lined his fastballs the other way for fly outs. The final bit of position player news from this game was Eli White leaving after one at bat and two innings in the field, though there were no apparent injuries on the field.
Hayden Harris hit a rough stretch on the mound and has had a few bad games in a row this month, but came in last night for two innings and put up his best outing in awhile. Harris struck out three batters and got four whiffs on his fastball in two innings, and notably kept the ball out of the middle of the zone. Harris hasn’t done as well to command the fastball at the top of the zone since he started struggling, and that’s the core of most of his issues as he relies on pinpointing that fastball in the upper third or just above the zone to have success.
Swing and Misses
Ian Anderson - 10
Hayden Harris - 5
Ken Giles - 4
(58-63) Mississippi Braves 2, (63-57) Pensacola Blue Wahoos 1
- Cal Conley, SS: 2-4, 2B, RBI, .238/.305/.304
- David McCabe, DH: 0-4, .141/.313/.203
- Landon Harper, SP: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 1.32 ERA
- Rolddy Munoz, RP: 2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 4.54 ERA
- Elison Joseph, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 1.26 ERA
Landon Harper has been terrific for Mississippi all season, and in this one was called on to cover four innings after the departure of Drue Hackenberg left a hole in the rotation. Harper dominated from the outset and despite a solid lineup of pitching in the system on Wednesday turned in the best outing of anyone with six strikeouts over four scoreless innings. Harper lacks the top end stuff to really project to a significant major league role, but has done well at every level when called upon consistently commanding the strike zone and forcing weak contact. He will occasionally have games like this one where he can roll up some decent strikeout totals, but mostly just does his job as a swing-man/spot starter and does it well.
Mississippi’s offense has struggled to scrape together scoring all season, and usually when they do it looks a lot like it did today. After two quick outs in the fifth inning Geraldo Quintero was able to get a rally going, slicing an outside pitch into right field for a single that set off a chain of base hits to bring home both runs in the game. Keshawn Ogans hit a ball that would have likely been caught by the shifted second baseman, but it ricocheted off of the pitcher and allowed all runners to reach safely. Bryson Horne then snuck one past the shortstop to score the game’s first run and Cal Conley hit a hard single to score Ogans and make it 2-0. Conley had two hits in this game, his second coming when he drove a liner through the right side in the eighth inning and took second for a hustle double. Notably Conley’s hit to score Ogans came from the right side of the plate, where earlier in the season he was batting exclusively from the left side and seemed to have dropped switch-hitting.
Elison Joseph’s command remains a concern, but he has been getting terrific results in spite of some poor games. Lately Joseph has mostly kept the ball in the strike zone where his fastball that touches the upper 90’s and his wipeout slider are both able to force swing-and-miss, and since allowing two runs on August 8th he has pitched six straight scoreless outings with 10 strikeouts to three walks. Joseph’s raw stuff is good enough for him to succeed as long as he is generally around the zone, and we’ve seen that some guys can ultimately figure it out later in their careers. Domingo Gonzalez is a good example and a similar pitcher — an undersized flamethrower who struggled with command coming into this season but found the control necessary to succeed and has put up dominant swing-and-miss since. Joseph hasn’t quite figured out the command to that level yet, but he’s made remarkable strides in each season of professional baseball and may have worked his way into the conversation to be protected from the Rule 5 draft this offseason.
Swing and Misses
Landon Harper - 14
Rolddy Munoz - 6
(57-61) Rome Emperors 4, (69-51) Greensboro Grasshoppers 5
- Jace Grady, RF: 1-4, BB, .185/.290/.268
- EJ Exposito, SS: 1-5, 2B, RBI, .255/.306/.419
- Luis Vargas, SP: 3 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 3.88 ERA
- Cory Wall, RP: 4 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 2.93 ERA
It was another rough outing for Luis Vargas, who since the all star break has pretty much seen all of the command progression he had made earlier in the year regress back to previous seasons. There could be some fatigue aspect to it as Vargas was moved into the bullpen and then back into the rotation, and that switch to needing to be stretched out seems anecdotally to be more fatiguing to these guys than the same amount of innings thrown in one role or the other. For Vargas though he has pretty much just been trying to feed his fastball into the middle of the zone and hoping it will land, and he has been struggling both with giving up hard hits and walks for the past few outings. His slider has also taken on an inconsistent shape and overall after what looked like it could be a breakout year for Vargas he’s gotten a bit off track. Given his reliever-ish delivery and frame this isn’t a particular surprise as I never expected him to stick as a starter, though I had hoped he would do enough to force his way into the Double-A rotation and get some innings at a higher level.
The Emperors offense has once again fallen into a deep slump, with them averaging 2.5 runs and not scoring more than four in any of their prior eight games. The pitching staff has had little to no room to work with, though this was a bit of a different game for Rome as the team as a whole drew some walks and didn’t strike out often like they have been for most of their second half blues. However they haven’t helped themselves much when given opportunities, like in the third inning. The Emperors drew two walks and were hit by two pitches in the inning, but thanks to a caught stealing and two fly outs came up empty. In the fifth inning they finally made their mark and took a lead in the game, and it was EJ Exposito who had the big hit in the inning. Exposito got a 3-2 slider that hung out over the plate, and he turned on it and drove it down the third base line for a double. Justin Janas’s single would score the next two runs to take the lead for Rome, but Exposito had no other hits and Rome scored no more runs in the game. Putting a decent swing on a hanging breaking ball is nice for Exposito, but overall his trouble adjusting to secondary pitches at this level have kept his numbers down for awhile. Exposito struggles to lay off of breaking pitches, and tends to dive out across the zone at them rather than staying back and trying to drive them. Exposito has shown he has enough power to all fields to do damage when he stays patient at the plate, but he too often sells out on fastballs and leaves himself vulnerable to everything else.
Swing and Misses
Luis Vargas - 10
Cory Wall - 7
Isaac Gallegos - 6
(43-76) Augusta GreenJackets 0, (65-55) Columbia Fireflies 3
- Junior Garcia, LF: 1-4, .147/.281/.157
- John Gil, SS: 0-3, BB, .326/.367/.391
- Pat Clohisy, RF: 1-4, 2B, .266/.333/.375
- Logan Samuels, SP: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 0.00 ERA
- Jacob Gomez, RP: 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 0.96 ERA
- Luis Arestigueta, RP: 5 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 4.50 ERA
A bunch of new draftees were added to Augusta’s roster yesterday, and as a result the rotation has shifted quite a bit. The Braves want the new draftees making starts, and eight round pick Logan Samuels got the honor in this one. Samuels had a solid inning where he sat 93-95 with his fastball and struck out a batter. The camera angle for this one made it hard to have any clue what Samuels was really throwing, but Fireflies hitters did seem to struggle with it. Jacob Gomez and his funky delivery kept his successful streak going, as so far in his professional career he has struck out 14 batters in 9 1⁄3 innings. Both Gomez and Samuels are players I’m going to be watching closely, but Luis Arestigueta is the player from the day that deserves the most attention.
Arestigueta has been a bit hot and cold even going back to the end of the season in the complex league, where some days he hasn’t been commanding the ball particularly well and allows a lot of walks. Arestigueta had a much better feel for hitting the outside corner in this game than his last, and he looks impressive any time he commands the ball. He has three major league quality pitches, and it’s a similar overall approach and east-west style to Bryce Elder with a bit more projectability. Arestigueta has a long way to go to get to Elder’s command profile, but he’s also just 18 years old and the Braves seem to think there is a lot more to come for him. Arestigueta has plenty of room to add weight to his frame, and that combines with the Braves doing a good job over the past couple of years of tweaking mechanics slightly to improve velocity there seems to be some optimism that he could get up into the mid-90’s at maturity. Arestigueta does tend to leave his slider over the plate too often and doesn’t have enough confidence in his changeup to utilize it as a weapon the way he will need to at the upper levels, but the base skill set is there for a solid major league starter.
Sadly while this is a very intriguing pitching staff the offense just isn’t any good and once again they came up short despite a great day from the pitchers. I’ve liked some of the progression we’ve seen from these guys, notably from John Gil and how quickly he has adjusted to the pitching at this level. He struggles to reach pitches at the bottom of the zone and away from him, tending to beat them into the ground, but he has found a much more even approach and is laying off of sliders and curveballs more often than in his opening weeks with the team. The standout for the team has been Pat Clohisy, who now has six doubles over his past seven games. Clohisy does a good job of recognizing secondary pitches and is able to cover the zone well and make contact, though I do have concerns of how he’ll handle better velocity. His swing can get long as his bat speed is mediocre, and the combination of the two means he doesn’t pull fastballs, especially inside fastballs, as often or as well as he needs to. The Braves will need to tighten up his swing a bit to especially in the upper half of the zone, but early in his career he has done a good job of hitting the ball hard and hitting plenty of line drives and fly balls.
Swing and Misses
Luis Arestigueta - 13
Jacob Gomez - 7
