While rain spoiled the fun in Mississippi, it was still a good night down in the Braves’ minor league system.
Rain spoiled some of the Braves’ minor league action on Wednesday evening, but their affiliates still managed a 2-1 record last night. Kyle Muller and Dylan Dodd were excellent on the mound, Vaughn Grissom connected for a home run, and Augusta’s offense went wild. Let’s get into the games.
Gwinnett Stripers 1, Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp 2
- Pat Valaika, 2B: 2-3, .804 OPS
- Drew Waters, CF: 1-4, .755 OPS
- Kyle Muller, SP: 6 IP, 6 H, 1 R (0 ER), 3 BB, 9 K, 3.09 ERA
Kyle Muller put together a great start for the Stripers, but it was spoiled by a complete lack of offense from Gwinnett as they fell to Jacksonville by the score of 2-1. Last night’s start was one of the best Muller has posted this season. He did find himself in some trouble when three straight singles and a passed ball to start the fourth inning gave Jacksonville not only a run, but a couple of runners with no out. However, Muller struck out the next three batters and it was safe to say he was fired up. Nick Vincent would give up a run in the seventh inning once Muller was done and, unfortunately, that proved to be the game winner.
Not much to say about the offense as the only run that scored came after Phil Gosselin hit into a double play. Gwinnett’s only extra-base hit of the evening came courtesy of Kramer Robertson who the Braves claimed off of waivers from the Cardinals a few days ago.
Mississippi Braves, Rocket City Trash Pandas – Postponed
Rain sucks
Rome Braves 3, Wilmington Blue Rocks 1
- Vaughn Grissom, SS: 2-4, HR, 2 RBI, .774 OPS
- Cody Milligan, 2B: 3-4, R, .862 OPS
- Dylan Dodd, SP: 6 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 3.79 ERA
Dylan Dodd continued his season turnaround as Rome shut down Wilmington in route to a 3-1 win. Dodd first few starts saw him pretty clearly unsure of how he wanted to attack high-A hitters as a starter and his results suffered as a result. However, he has now given up a total of four earned runs in his last five starts combined with 27 strikeouts across that same span of games. We’d like for him to give up a little bit less contact, but it is hard to be upset with the progress he has been making. It was still a tight game when Dodd was done, but the Rome bullpen combined for three scoreless innings of relief to lock the game down.
Vaughn Grissom headlined the Rome offense last night as his two-run homer proved to be the difference in the game. For the month of June (so far), Grissom has slashed .308/.379/.462 and the Braves will happily take that from the young shortstop. Cody Milligan had another three hit night and we are reminded again that he deserves a promotion to Double-A although he may have to wait until after the draft (and the subsequent promotions and assignments that come with that) for that to happen.
Augusta GreenJackets 15, Columbia Fireflies 2
- Geraldo Quintero, 2B: 3-5, 2 2B, 3 RBI, 3 R, SB, .717 OPS
- Cal Conley, SS: 3-6, 3 RBI, SB, 2 R, .665 OPS
- Caleb Durbin, 3B: 2-4, 2 RBI, 3 BB, SB, 3 R, .828 OPS
- Luis Vargas, SP: 5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 4.25 ERA
So, uh, Augusta took Columbia to task on Wednesday evening as they annihilated the Fireflies by the score of 15-2. Luis Vargas got the start for Augusta and while the one strikeout wasn’t great, he didn’t have to be great last night and he still put together a solid line beyond that. The strikeouts do seem to be inconsistent with him, so that is at least worth keeping an eye on. Ronaldo Alesandro and Darling Florentino combined for four innings of scoreless relief with Florentino striking out three batters in his two completely clean innings of work.
As for the offense, well…there was a lot of it as Augusta scored 15 runs on 15 hits and 13 walks. Only Brandon Parker failed to record a hit (he still drove in a run) and only Stephen Paolini failed to drive in a run (he still had two hits). Six different GreenJacket hitters had multi-hit games and Caleb Durbin, Cal Conley, Geraldo Quintero, and Brandol Mezquita all drove in multiple runs. Oddly enough, despite the offensive explosion, Augusta only had four extra-base hits with Kadon Morton’s solo homer in the fifth being the only ball to make it over the fence.