Some things remain constant, like Birmingham winning again and the ACL White Sox streaking
Jacksonville prevails in an opener squeaker, Charlotte returns the exact same serve, with one inning’s extra juice on it, in the nightcap. Pitching throughout both games was pretty splendid, with nine pitchers seeing time and none inflicting terminal damage. The same can’t be said of the hitters, going 1-for-11 with RISP in the doubleheader, all told. But: Ruben Tejada, my man!
The D&D boys strike again, and not with hit points or 20-sided dice. Tonight, the offensive D was Craig Dedelow, who follow up on a fab Friday with a splendid Saturday: two d-i-n-g-e-r-s. On the mound, big D was Johan Dominguez, who’s had a rough go of Double-A but was the man today. Thank goodness for DeDe’s two longballs and six extra-base hits for the Barons overall, because this could so easily have been far uglier a game for the Trash Pandas: Birmingham left 18 men on base collectively and were just 1-for-11 with RISP.
Who needs RISP when I’m clocking the ball over the wall, sez Craig.
Apt to remind, after games like this, as deep as 40-odd games into this season, the Dash were a .500 team. Winston-Salem’s pitching staff made like 16´´softball in Grant Park, serving up 15 runs on 17 hits. And frankly, the five combined errors between the two clubs (three on the W-S side) look worse than a typical jumbo softballer ballgame. Lázaro Leal made what I’d assume to be his professional pitching debut in the ninth, a fact I’m unwilling to confirm at 6:11 in the morning after an all-nighter, with two earned on four hits, making him only the third-worst chucker for the Dash tonight, ahead of starter Kevin Folman.
It’s like Justin Jirschele moved down to Kanny and took over the reins of the Cannon Ballers, as the club is running wild of late; in tonight’s heartbreaker, 6-of-6 in swipes. Unfortunately, stealing second base doesn’t earn runs, or, more aptly, bullpen holds; this game was lost in SIX big runs late for the Woodpeckers, in the seventh and eighth frames. Holy crap I missed this because again, by now it’s 6:22 a.m. on a minor league update all-nighter, but the Kanny hurlers issued 15 free passes while its batters whiffed 17 times; if there is a professional game ever won under such parameters I’d like to see it.
Terrell Tatum is good! all five fans at Camelback Ranch cried out five times tonight, one for each plate appearance — and as is the norm, Tatum disappointed just twice. The left fielder, popping an .861 OPS with quicks and even some center field play, has almost undoubtedly been the surprise of Glendale, if not the MVP of the Complex Sox. The other contender for both titles, Wilfred Veras, is over .300 and also rocking a .912 OPS. Now, Veras has no quicks and in fact, que lastima, fumbled his seventh ball of the young season tonight; worry not, five of his previous six slips came at third base, not his “natural” “position” on the “field” of first base.
Jake Suddreth, signed at the top of the month, got the win in his pro debut in the cheapest way imaginable, two outs and two runs given up. Any one of the five fans at Camelback could be a better official scorer than the AutoBot 3000™ currently being used by MiLB.
The DSL White Sox were suspended by rain in the fifth inning on Saturday, so no recap or voting. But note some weird lowlights thus far from the fellas: already three errors on the White Sox, and Luis Pineda was caught stealing — home.