Gwinnett Braves 2, Louisville Bats 5
Box Score
- Dustin Peterson, LF: 3-4, 2B, RBI
- Carlos Franco, 1B: 2-4, RBI
- Lucas Sims, SP: 6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 3.54 ERA
Lucas Sims did his best to limit the damage from a fairly rocky start, but the offense could not capitalize on their chances as the Braves fell 5-2. Lucas pitched in a bit of trouble at times while allowing 10 baserunners, but battled his way through and got some help from his defense in particular from some timely double plays. Eric O’Flaherty came on in relief of Sims and, not unlike his time this season with the major league club, he struggled mightily in giving up 4 hits and 2 earned runs while recording just a single out. Caleb Dirks came in to clean things up but the damage was done and Gwinnett was in a 3-run hole late that they could not overcome.
On offense, there wasn’t much to see outside of an excellent games from Dustin Peterson and Carlos Franco. Dustin Peterson had his first 3 hit game of the season which included a double as well as an RBI. His average is over .300 very early on in his season and has shown no ill effects from the surgery on his hand that cost him the first 1.5 months of the season. Carlos Franco has now hit safely in 5 straight games in AAA, although the power he was exhibiting down in Mississippi hasn’t quite shown up yet in his time in Gwinnett. Ozzie Albies went 1-4 which seems to be par for the course for him this season thus far. His numbers this season against righties have been particularly not-Ozzie-like (.227/.280/.331), but let’s not forget that he didn’t have a normal offseason or spring training due to surgery to repair a fractured elbow.
Mississippi Braves 6, Jackson Generals 4
Box Score
- Ronald Acuna, LF: 3-5, 2 2B, RBI, run
- Joey Meneses, 1B: 3-5, 2 RBI
- Kris Medlen, SP: 4.1 IP, 6 H, 3 R (1 ER), 2 BB, 4 K
Kris Medlen struggled a bit at times as he continues to be on the comeback trail, but the offense had his back as the Braves were triumphant 6-4. It was nice to see Medlen on the mound again and he looked good largely as his breaking ball had bite to it and the ball seemed to be jumping out of his hand. He was missing his spots a bit and paid for it at times, plus an errant pickoff throw led to a comedy of errors type inning (although not as bad as the big league club on this night....whew lawd that was bad) that scored a run. Reed Harper made two errors on the evening that did not help matters. He now has 7 errors in 17 games played this season to go along with his .391 OPS.
On offense, we are running out of superlatives to heap upon Ronald Acuna so in short....he good. With yet another three hit night (two of which were doubles), he is casually slashing .390/.448/.623 in 20 games at Mississippi so far. He is a bit too aggressive right now as he is striking out at a pretty high clip and has been caught trying to take extra bases more than he should, but this appears to be more the product of some inexperience and a confidence high than indicative of an underlying problem. Mississippi got contributions from up and down the lineup with Luis Valenzuela, Travis Demeritte, Joey Meneses, and Kade Scivicque all joining Acuna with multi-hit games. Scivicque, who doesn’t appear to qualify for leaderboards due to number of at-bats, would be tied for 4th in batting average in the entire Southern League (Acuna would be leading the way by like 70 points fwiw).
Florida Fire Frogs 4, Clearwater Threshers 1
Box Score
- Matt Gonzalez, DH: 2-4
- Ray-Patrick Didder, CF: 2-4, 2B, 3B, RBI
- Ricardo Sanchez, SP: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 3.42 ERA
Ricardo Sanchez continues to quietly re-establish himself as a quality pitching prospect with another strong outing as the Fire Frogs beat Clearwater 4-1. This was Sanchez’s 4th scoreless outing this year and nearly all of his peripherals are trending in positive direction. Over his career averages (in particular as a Braves), his Ks per nine are up, walk rate is down, and his ERA, FIP, and xFIP have all shown decreases. It is hard to say with certainty what is causing this improvement (curse you Fire Frogs and your lack of MiLB streaming coverage), but he has been getting a bunch of ground balls and between that and getting more swings and misses that seems like a logical place to start thinking about it.
On offense, the newly promoted Matt Gonzalez had a pair of hits. However, the bulk of the damage the offense did was in the bottom of the order as Ray-Patrick Didder, Jonathan Morales, and Alejandro Salazar combined for 5 hits, 2 RBIs, and 3 runs scored. Didder in particular has been much better at the plate of late as he is batting .333 over his last 10 games. He is also turning into quite the renaissance man as he has seen multiple games at 2nd, SS, RF, and CF this season. Austin Riley added a hit and an RBI as he has quietly put together a nice if somewhat unspectacular start to the season. One area that seems to be a focus for him is cutting down on the strikeouts and he has shown progress (just 8 strikeouts over his last ten games).
Rome Braves 10, Greenville Drive 7 - Game 1 - F/9
Box Score
- Brett Cumberland, DH: 1-3, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 HBP, 2 runs
- Justin Ellison, RF: 1-3, HR, RBI, 2 BB, 2 runs
- Ian Anderson, SP: 4 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 4.40 ERA
Rome Braves 2, Greenville Drive 5 - Game 2
Box Score
- Brett Cumberland, DH: 1-2, HR, BB, 2 RBI
- Ramon Osuna, 1B: 2-3
- Jaret Hellinger, SP: 4 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 12.46 ERA
Rome split their doubleheader with Greenville by the scores of 10-7 and 2-5 despite Brett Cumberland turning into a one-man wrecking crew of late. Game one saw Ian Anderson struggle quite a bit. He struggled to put batters away in situations that favored him and had trouble locating his pitches, in particular to his glove side. For Ian, he is most successful when he is consistently throwing first pitch strikes and he just wasn’t doing that on this day. In the second game, Jaret Hellinger got the start in the second half of the doubleheader and also struggled. While its a small sample size, his 12.46 ERA in his four appearances at Rome has not been building confidence in him to be sure. In the first game, the bullpen kept the Braves in the game enough to allow them to make their epic comeback down 7 runs to steal the first game.
On offense, Brett Cumberland is ridiculous right now, not only did he have 4 more RBIs to had to his impressive May total, but two of them were on a double that tied the first game to send it to extra innings and the other two were a 2-run homer that accounted for the vast bulk of Rome’s offense in the second game. He was also hit by two more pitches to bring his season total to 18...the dream of breaking the league record of 41 is still in play, boys. Justin Ellison continues to look much improved over last year and hit a go ahead solo shot in extras of the first game. Ramon Osuna made his first appearances as a Rome Brave in both halves of this game and did not miss a beat, reaching base twice in both games including three hits. Also, he has clearly been hitting the weight room hard and if/when he really gets a hold of a pitch it may never land.
Loading comments...