Drake kept his stellar play up by drawing four walks in a game
It was a rough Tuesday night for the Atlanta Braves affiliates. None of the full season teams won their games and Hurston Waldrep had an off day, but there were still plenty of notable games from top guys. Isaiah Drake had a terrific game in Augusta to help the team in an exciting, close finish, and down in the Dominican Republic top 2025 signee Diego Tornes drew two walks.
(23-35) Gwinnett Stripers 4, (34-23) Nashville Sounds 8
- Carlos Rodriguez, RF: 2-4, .300/.358/.340
- Eddys Leonard, 3B: 1-5, RBI, .201/.288/.425
- Hurston Waldrep, SP: 5 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 4 K, 5.33 ERA
- Jhancarlos Lara, RP: 0.2 IP, 1 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 10.13 ERA
Gwinnett was able to battle through Hurston Waldrep’s mediocre start to stay close in the game, but a blow-up from Jhancarlos Lara in the eighth inning sunk the game completely. Following his mechanical changes Hurston Waldrep has been on a great run for the past month, showing the most consistent stretch of command and swing-and-miss generation of his career at the upper levels. This just so happened to be the first game in awhile that Waldrep wasn’t on his game, as he really struggled especially to land his slider in good positions. Waldrep did throw his fair share of strikes, but he wasn’t getting batters to chase his slider out of the zone and ran up deep counts along with four walks. One thing to not though is that like his prior outing when he also saw some trouble (though less so with walks) the Braves pulled Waldrep completely away from using his splitter and forced him to live fastball-slider. Waldrep had only five splitters, none of which elicited a swing, and that limitation certainly dominated the reasoning as to why he was struggling to finish off hitters. Waldrep had solid results with his fastball, including eight of his 12 whiffs, while once again pitching in and around the zone with much more regularity than he did prior to the mechanical tweaks. It was a weak result for Waldrep but not at all discouraging, as he managed to survive five innings without his best pitch and with poor command on his second-best secondary offering.
The Stripers offense only produced four runs (partially due to sequencing and partially due to only have two walks to the Sounds seven) but had one of their better days as a team in terms of contact quality. The Stripers as a team had eight 100+ mph batted balls, all with positive launch angles, and every hitter in the lineup had at least one hard-hit ball in the game. The hardest contact was Cade Bunnell’s second inning single at 108 mph, which preceded a double from Matthew Batten that gave the Stripers an early and short-lived lead. Bunnell has only played a handful of games with Gwinnett this season but has been very good for them, with his two hits and walk in this game bringing his OPS up to .857. The Stripers weren’t able to really string together innings with hard hit balls (or good batted ball luck) though, and thus just notched a couple of early runs before putting up two runs in the ninth after the game was basically decided.
Jhancarlos Lara’s command on Tuesday night was probably the worst I’ve seen, which says quite a lot. It’s not just that he was missing the zone, it’s that he was not particularly even close on most of his pitches and Nashville hitters had no real reason to offer at anything. When they did swing he was as overwhelming as always, getting five whiffs on 10 swings, but no matter how dominant the stuff it’s hard to survive three walks in less than an inning. Lara has been mostly keeping his control in check over the past few games but this was a major backslide for him in terms of keeping his composure. He started off relatively strong by striking out the first two batters and throwing four of the nine pitches in the zone. However only four of the final 19 that he threw were in the zone, and three came to the one batter who managed to get a hard-hit single. After that only one of the final ten pitches were in the strike zone. With the bases loaded Dylan Dodd had a chance to put out the fire but allowed two hits, scoring all three inherited runners and a runner of his own to blow the game open.
Swing and Misses
Hurston Waldrep – 12
Jhancarlos Lara – 5
Domingo Gonzalez – 3
(22-26) Columbus Clingstones 2, (25-27) Pensacola Blue Wahoos 4
- David McCabe, 3B: 0-2, 2 BB, .241/.379/.366
- Ethan Workinger, DH: 1-4, .240/.326/.474
- Landon Harper, SP: 4.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 2.15 ERA
- Austin Smith, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1.80 ERA
Landon Harper got the job done for Columbus, showing off yet again his ability to give the team good innings regardless of the role he’s asked to take on. Harper was making his second straight start, and while he didn’t put up a crazy outing like his last game he still managed to get through 4 2⁄3 solid innings. Harper cruised through the first four innings of this game, challenging the Blue Wahoos in the zone and forcing them into poor contact. Only once did one of those challenges bit Harper when he hung a cutter down main street which Dalvy Rosario tattooed for a solo home run in the third inning. Otherwise Harper was solid, only getting pulled with two outs in the fifth inning after clearing the lineup twice then allowing a single to leadoff man Jared Serna. Luis Vargas was in prime position to escape the inning with no damage done, but he issued a walk and a base hit that allowed the inherited runner to score and tie the game.
The real, deep problem for the Clingstones was that the offense went silent in the second half of the game. They were rolling early on, and had a couple of innings where they were able to put together hits in succession to force home runs. Cal Conley’s double in the third inning put he and Kobe Kato in scoring position with one out, and though Ethan Workinger and David McCabe both struck out a wild pitch scored Kato to give Columbus a lead. In the fourth inning Columbus got busy with no outs, first on a swinging bunt from Drew Compton for a leadoff single, then on an absolute missile from Adam Zebrowski that burned the right fielder for a double. With two runners in scoring position and no outs Columbus had all the opportunity to break the game open, but once again only got a single run out of it. After that Zebrowski double the Clingstones didn’t record another hit, with a walk from McCabe being the only thing to break up the 18 outs that finished out the loss. 12 of those 18 outs came via strikeout.
Swing and Misses
Landon Harper – 9
Austin Smith – 3
(26-26) Rome Emperors 3, (26-26) Greenville Drive 7
- Titus Dumitru, LF: 1-3, BB, .253/.317/.354
- EJ Exposito, DH: 1-3, HR, .237/.353/.430
- Herick Hernandez, SP: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, 6.07 ERA
- Isaac Gallegos, RP: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 1.47 ERA
Every pitcher is bound to have his bad days, and Herick Hernandez is just going to have to eat this one. His command was not at all up to snuff against Greenville, and he got punished for it with four walks issued and three home runs allowed. The home runs were not cheap shots either, he got hit hard though after the first inning he managed to scrape together something of a reasonable outing. Two of those home runs and four runs came in the first inning, but Hernandez still battled out the next 3 2⁄3 with only a solo home run in the third inning scuffing the scoreboard. Hernandez this season has battled with the inconsistency in locating his fastball and slider and hitters have taken advantage of mistakes in the zone, but he is still striking out a ton of guys with whiff rates to match, and his command is still significantly better than it was at Miami. His two games last season may have created some really aggressive expectations for him for some publications, but disregarding the reaction to those two games Hernandez has more than held his own for where he was expected to be at this point in his development. He makes mistakes with his location but his arsenal can get hitters out even with a starter’s workload and he’s really in the process of refining his delivery to hit the edges of the zone more regularly.
The offense had a funky day. They were putting the ball in play throughout the game with only three strikeouts as a team, but were more often than not hitting weak ground balls and didn’t have any batted ball luck until they ran into a few in the fifth inning. 16 outs on ground balls is never what you want to see, but to lead off the fifth Titus Dumitru hit a spinning chopper into no man’s land behind the mound and was able to cruise into first with the first hit of the game. Mistakes followed with a hit batter and a walk to load the bases, and despite a 5-0 deficit suddenly Rome had a little sniff of a chance to get back into the game. That didn’t happen, though. Ambioris Tavarez got a 2-0 pitch on the outer half and lifted a dangerous line drive into the right-center gap, but a running catch robbed him of extra bases and at least a couple of RBI, and the sacrifice fly and an RBI ground out to follow left Rome with only two runs scored in the inning. EJ Exposito gave Rome a little boost in the ninth inning when he turned on a high fastball and demolished a home run, but it was too little, too late. Tavarez followed up with some more good contact, sitting back on a breaking ball and lasering one into left field for a base hit, but after that fly out in the fifth inning Rome never really looked like they were in the game.
Swing and Misses
Herick Hernandez – 9
Giomar Diaz – 3
(28-22) Augusta GreenJackets 5, (28-24) Fayetteville Woodpeckers 6
- Owen Carey, RF: 1-4, BB, .276/.353/.384
- Isaiah Drake, CF: 1-1, 4 BB, .277/.366/.410
- Jacob Kroeger, SP: 5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1.86 ERA
- Jackson Dannelley, RP: 2.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 6.00 ERA
This one had to sting for Augusta, as they entered the ninth inning with a lead but couldn’t hold on. The hitters were not really having much success at getting good contact in this game, and they didn’t have a single extra base hit, but Fayetteville’s pitching staff allowed 11 walks which Augusta was able to take advantage of, at times. It was another fantastic showing for Isaiah Drake, who on his own drew four of those walks and for good measure smoked a base hit into left field in the first inning to make it five times on base in the game. While Drake’s contact rates are still a bit below what you would really prefer from him, there is no doubt about the strides he has made this season and he is dangerously close to being ready for that call up to High-A. Since the start of May Drake has a 143 wRC+, but the most impressive number there has to be his .179 isolated power. Still Drake was only a minor factor in the game as Colby Jones was the only hitter behind him that did any damage. Jones had two hits in the game, and one came at a critical juncture. His third inning single with the bases loaded chased home two runs to give Augusta the lead, In the seventh inning he once again saw the bases loaded in front of him, and this time drew a walk to force home a run. Augusta scored three runs in that inning despite not getting a hit, with four total walks and an error contributing to them re-taking the lead. For Jones’s effort, he got off to a rough start this season as his over-aggressive approach had led to some backslide after a really good draft year last year. The past month though he has shown a much more disciplined approach to the strike zone and it has paid huge dividends. While the power isn’t there yet — despite some efforts to introduce leverage and effort to his swing — Jones has cut his chases and increased his contact and has a 101 wRC+ with a 18.8% strikeout rate and 15.3% walk rate in his past 20 games.
While watching a 25 year old dominate in Single-A isn’t exactly a novel experience, it’s still worth paying attention to what Jacob Kroeger continues to do in Augusta. With five more innings, one run allowed, and seven strikeouts, Kroeger has a 1.86 ERA and 2.55 xFIP in a hybrid role for the GreenJackets. If you take out his first outing of the season his performance is even more outlierish. In the past ten outings he has 38 strikeouts to only five walks, leading to a 1.30 ERA, 1.92 FIP, and 32% K-BB%. Kroeger is benefitting from beating up on much younger competition, but also has a slider the has developed into a serious weapon. He’s throwing the slider a touch harder this season, and with explosive movement the low-80’s offering has consistently missed bats throughout the year. He has also improved his changeup, so despite the below-average fastball velocity he may be able to get to the upper levels and be a spot starter-type arm. He was showing a small increase in velocity as well in his shorter inning role earlier in the year, but that has gone away as a starter and even still he was topping out at 94, and doesn’t have room to add velocity without significant mechanical changes.
So the team cruised yet again behind Kroeger, but after Kroeger left in the fifth inning things got a bit tense. Juan Sanchez allowed a couple of baserunners in the sixth inning, but with two outs and two strikes he was in a perfect position when the batter rolled over a slider to third base. Unfortunately for Augusta Luis Sanchez bounced a poor throw to first base that Mason Guerra couldn’t scoop, a critical error that allowed two runs to score and gave the lead over to the Woodpeckers. Fayetteville would add a run off of Justin Long in the sixth inning, but Augusta made the comeback and going into the ninth had Jackson Dannelley ready to close out the game. Dannelley’s second pitch would take the GreenJackets out of the driver’s seat, as Esmil Valencia crushed a solo home run to tie the game. Dannelley bounced back with three strikeouts to finish the inning, but the damage was done. Augusta had a huge chance in the bottom of the ninth inning when Drake drew a leadoff walk, then on a single from Jones was able to move to third with still no outs. A strikeout of Mason Guerra was a huge first out in the inning. Nick Montgomery got a ball into the air, but popped it into very shallow left field for the second out, and Roiber Niazoa grounded out harmlessly to waste the chance. Fayetteville got their run home in the top of the tenth inning, putting the pressure onto Augusta to come away with at least one run. A bunt successfully moved Leiker Figueroa over to third base, but the game ended in quick fashion. A grounder to shortstop cut down Figueroa at the plate, and on the play Luis Sanchez was thrown out trying to advance to second base to set up a potential scoring chance, ending the game.
Swing and Misses
Jacob Kroeger – 12
Juan Sanchez – 6
Jackson Dannelley – 5
(7-14) FCL Braves 3, (12-9) FCL Orioles 4
- Juan Mateo, 3B: 0-2, BB, .241/.315/.289
- Jose Perdomo, SS: 1-4, .247/.308/.296
(8-14) FCL Braves 5, (12-10) FCL Orioles 0
- Juan Mateo, 3B: 0-3, BB, .241/.315/.289
- Jose Perdomo, SS: 1-4, RBI, .247/.308/.296
- Kendy Richard, SP: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 3.60 ERA
A heroic effort from Kendy Richard and Junior Garcia in the second game of the double header for the FCL Braves was the savior of the day, preventing the organization from taking an eight-game sweep on Tuesday. Game one was not particularly kind to the FCL squad, save for Carlos Monteverde and his two hits, but Richard blanked the Orioles in the second game for his second straight good-looking start. He has allowed only one run over 10 innings in his past two starts. Garcia’s season down in the FCL got off to a disappointing start, and just over a week ago his OPS was sitting at .457. Now he has rattled off a six game on-base streak during which he has five doubles and a home run, shooting his slugging percentage alone up 180 points. Garcia’s in a tough spot not really having a spot to play in Augusta, and it’s good to see him shaking off those cobwebs and seeming to put himself in position to be promoted if any of those Single-A outfielders get pushed to Rome. We also saw three hits and three stolen bases in this game from Dalton McIntyre, who is desperately in need of a few more of these type performances. He has been terrible out of the leadoff spot this season, something that really comes as a surprise given how good he was at a Division 1 school last season. McIntyre is having a few decent games here and there but hasn’t shown near the on-base skill he did at the college level.
(0-2) DSL Braves 3, (2-0) DSL Rays 10
- Diego Tornes, CF: 0-3, 2 BB
- Manuel Campos, SS: 1-3, 2 BB
The DSL Braves are in action and get ready for some funky stat lines, like the pitching staff issuing nine walks and striking out only three batters in this game. The first couple of games at this level haven’t produced much in the way of notable performances, though Diego Tornes comes backed with some lofty praise from his workouts. Tornes has worked three walks in his first two games, but given the number of times we’ve been burned by high praise out of these high bonus hitters these past few years it would be nice to see him really beat the brakes off of guys at this level. So far he hasn’t recorded a hit.