Our MVP made his first rehab appearance and made an impact with a home run
The power came in heavy on the Atlanta Braves farm system on Tuesday afternoon, with the affiliates combining to hit nine home runs. Ronald Acuna Jr. carried the day with his return to action, hitting a home run in his third at bat, while Augusta led all teams with three home runs. Mason Guerra had two of those, and the surging Isaiah Drake smacked his first of the season to lead a win.
(17-23) Gwinnett Stripers 5, (20-20) Charlotte Knights 8
- Jarred Kelenic, CF: 2-5, RBI, .280/.390/.420
- James McCann, DH: 2-5, 2B, 3B, RBI, .278/.321/.431
- Davis Daniel, SP: 5 IP, 3 H, 3R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 4.71 ERA
- Jhancarlos Lara, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 0.00 ERA
The Stripers may have dropped their first game against the Knights, but it was a big day for Atlanta Braves fans as we had our first opportunity to see potential future closer Jhancarlos Lara at Triple-A. Lara was responsible for cleaning up in the eighth after the Knights had pulled away in the prior inning, and faced off against the middle of Charlotte’s lineup. Lara had a solid inning results-wise, though his pitching was quite similar to his Double-A performance. The raw stuff was absurd, with Lara averaging a bit over 100 mph on his six fastballs and a tick over 90 on his slider with huge vertical movement. However, Lara landed only three pitches in the strike zone, and only one of those was a fastball. Yet again, Lara’s difficulties lied in getting his fastball in any sort of consistent location, though hitters did little against him. Most of his trouble came from walking the first batter on four pitches, and when he needed a pitch he just grooved a couple to get ahead of the next hitter. He struggled finding a spot to put away the hitter before landing his best pitch of the night — a fastball right above the zone to get the whiff for the first out. Lara started out the next at bat well by nipping the outside corner on a fastball, then managed to get a ground ball on an elevated slider that turned into an inning-ending double play. While the command wasn’t at all what Lara wanted, one impressive development is his pace on the mound. Lara tends to speed up and can let innings get away from him mentally, but even after struggling against the first batter he was able to keep the game slow and lock in to make better pitches to the next two hitters. Beyond command this is the imperative for him moving forward to prevent those blow up innings that have plagued him throughout his professional career.
Jarred Kelenic had a great day at the plate, and it was mere inches from being a loud statistical performance. Kelenic crushed his first batted ball of the day — 400 feet and 105 mph to dead center field — but it died against the wall for a long fly out. He had two hard hit singles later in the game, giving him hs second multi-hit game in his past three games. That first batted ball summed up many key moments for the Stripers, who in total had only three hits on eight batted balls over 100 mph, while the Knights went 4-6. Eddys Leonard led with the two hardest hit balls, one at 110 mph and the other at 105.6 mph, extending his stretch of high quality contact. Unfortunately he struck out twice in this game, but that was his first multi-strikeout game since April 15th.
Swing and Misses
Davis Daniel – 5
Jordan Weems – 3
Jhancarlos Lara – 1
(13-18) Columbus Clingstones 9, (16-15) Knoxville Smokies 7
- Cal Conley, SS: 2-6, RBI, .242/.336/.275
- Ethan Workinger, DH: 1-5, HR, BB, RBI, .280/.350/.613
- David McCabe, 3B: 1-5, HR, 3 RBI, .282/.439/.400
- Lucas Braun, SP: 4.2 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 3.95 ERA
- Shay Schanaman, RP: 2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 6.00 ERA
Lucas Braun struggled on the mound for the Clingstones, but the offense picked him up with two big home runs to win in extra innings. The most impactful came off of the bat of David McCabe in the fifth inning, as he turned on a slider that stayed in the zone low and in and absolutely hammered a three-run shot to right field. This is a big swing for McCabe, who despite his better performances this season hasn’t quite put together consistent power production. McCabe hadn’t homered since the first game of the season and has been putting up a career-low fly ball percentage and career-low pull rate. Neither of these are great for a guy who is going to need plus power production to stick at the major league level, but he has been hitting the ball consistently hard despite not showing the over-the-fence power this season. In a better run environment and with more emphasis on jumping on the mistake breaking balls he feasts on he should be able to reverse the mediocre power numbers.
Ethan Workinger on the other hand has produced outstanding power numbers, and in the first inning of this one gave Columbus a lead with his ninth home run of the season. Workinger fell behind 1-2, but the pitcher made a huge mistake by leaving a breaking ball up and on the inner half of the plate, a spot in the zone that Workinger rarely missed balls. Workinger hit an absolute tank over the bullpen in left field, bringing him into a tie for the Southern League lead in home runs. Workinger has been on a heater in May with a 1.368 OPS, six home runs, and only six strikeouts in nine games. Workinger has improved his decisions on breaking balls out of the strike zone, giving him more fastballs in the zone to hit, and he hasn’t been missing whenever pitchers make mistakes. Workinger is now second among qualified Southern League hitters with a 175 wRC+, and leads qualified full season hitters in the Braves system in that category.
Lucas Braun looked much better on the mound than his line might suggest, but a combination of hits finding space and a critical mistake leading to a grand slam lead to a career-high six runs allowed. Braun missed plenty of bats with his slider and was locating well for most of the game, racking up six strikeouts and only one walk against the 25 batters faced. He unfortunately gave up nine total hits in the game, and many of them were not well-hit balls. This truly spiraled in the second inning when two grounders found space for hits, then after issuing his lone walk of the game Braun gave up a massive grand slam. Braun left a cutter over the plate, a rare mistake in location with this game, and Jaylen Palmer did not miss a stitch. The same troubles irked Braun in the fifth inning. Despite jamming the leadoff on a fastball on the inner corner, the shallow pop up to left field fell between Geraldo Quintero and David McCabe for a cheap leadoff single. The next hitter rolled an 0-2 pitch through the left side for a base hit, putting Braun in yet more trouble. This time Braun made some huge pitches to get a force out and a strikeout, but was pulled for Jake McSteen due to pitch count. McSteen gave up the lead on the first pitch of his outing, allowing a similar pop up to Braun’s which fell in right field to score two runs and tie the game. Braun very well could have escaped this outing with only one or two runs allowed, but at every step found himself getting the short end of the batted ball stick.
Mississippi got that luck back in the tenth inning, running up two runs to take a commanding lead for Rolddy Munoz to work with. The Clingstones notched three straight singles to open the inning, and Kevin Kilpatrick Jr. had the clutch hit to put them over the top. Kilpatrick got a quick 2-0 advantage against former Mississippi Braves pitcher AJ Puckett, and didn’t wait when Puckett gave him a pitch to hit. On a high slider Kilpatrick sent it right back up the middle, driving in a run to extend the lead to 9-7.
Swing and Misses
Lucas Braun – 15
Shay Schanaman – 4
Jake McSteen – 2
(20-14) Rome Emperors 7, (23-11) Greensboro Grasshoppers 5
- Patrick Clohisy, CF: 3-4, BB, .270/.393/.374
- Titus Dumitru, LF: 3-4, 2B, HR, BB, 2 RBI, .270/.341/.377
- Lizandro Espinoza, SS: 2-5, 2B, HR, RBI, .244/.282/.420
- Garrett Baumann, SP: 5.1 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 4.83 ERA
- Isaac Gallegos, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 1.86 ERA
The top of the Emperors order carried the load, with Lizandro Espinoza, Patrick Clohisy, and Titus Dumitru accounting for all seven runs and eight of the ten hits for Rome. This started early in the game when Clohisy worked a big walk to get on base for Dumitru. Dumitru didn’t wait around when he got a fastball over the plate, jumping on the first pitch and slamming it onto the left field berm for a two-run home run. Dumitru has been producing hard contact throughout the year, but despite that this was just Dumitru’s first home run of the season. Dumitru has struggled to lift the ball this season, but a recent adjustment to his back elbow has him on a better plane to the plate. Hopefully we’ll start to see more home run pop from Dumitru, who certainly has the strength for it, and now has four extra base hits out of his total 12 hits in May.
This crew would keep on stringing hits together, with a snippet of luck helping to boost a three-run third inning. Before the luck, there was Lizandro Espinoza. Espinoza got a ball out over the plate and drove a big fly ball to right field, just clearing the wall for a leadoff home run to tie the game. Espinoza’s power this season has been a pleasant surprise, as he has hit the ball with authority to all fields and has improved his power from well-below-average to potentially getting into fringe average territory. Clohisy followed with a single, then, the good fortune. Dumitru popped one up down the right field line, but the defender had trouble tracking it in the air and it fell in fair territory for a double. Both Clohisy and Dumitru would score on sacrifice flies, giving the Emperors a lead headed into the middle innings.
It was a two-sided outing for Garrett Baumann. He started out with a horrible first inning, locating all of his pitches poorly and getting hit consistently hard. Baumann allowed two home runs on major mistakes with location, and were it not for a diving play from Dumitru he could have ended up allowing even more than the three runs he gave up. Then came the next four innings, when Baumann locked in and through four straight scoreless innings, missing bats, locating well, and showing off a new look at his slider. The Braves have been experimenting with different grips for Baumann’s slider, and despite him struggling to locate it at times the shape on that pitch in this game was solid. Then in the sixth inning he gave up a home run to the first batted he faced and was pulled with a runner on and one out in the inning. Greensboro ultimately ended up pushing that run home on a passed ball, tying the game heading into the latter third.
Here, the top of the order was once again in control. Clohisy and Dumitru had hits to lead off the inning, and Greensboro couldn’t get out of their own way. A wild pitch first allowed Clohisy to score and Dumitru to move to third base. Then on a strikeout of Ambioris Tavarez the catcher made a lazy and poor throw to second base, allowing Dumitru to come in from third to score the second run of the inning. The Rome bullpen threw up zeroes over the final three innings, with Isaac Gallegos putting out an impressive ninth inning behind his slider. Gallegos has been lights out this season, and though the strikeout numbers are trailing his whiff rates are still well above average so it figures we’ll see his strikeouts start to tick up over the coming weeks.
Swing and Misses
Garrett Baumann – 15
Isaac Gallegos – 5
(17-16) Augusta GreenJackets 8, (19-15) Columbia Fireflies 6
- John Gil, SS: 1-6, .239/.331/.310
- Isaiah Drake, CF: 1-5, HR, 2 RBI, .267/.345/.371
- Luis Arestigueta, SP: 2.2 IP, 2 H, 5 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 2.70 ERA
- Samuel Mejia, RP: 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 4.03 ERA
We have been patiently waiting for the first home run for Isaiah Drake this season, and though we got it it wasn’t quite how we might have expected. Drake put a charge in a fly ball to center field in the fifth inning, burning the center fielder for a sure extra base hit. The center fielder, however, took a circuitous route, and when he stumbled on the warning track the ball kicked away far enough for the speedy Drake to be off to the races. Drake rounded them all, diving in ahead of the throw home for a game-tying two-run home run. This might have been the most exciting performance of the day, if not for the outstanding night that Mason Guerra had. Guerra had two home runs and another RBI single, racking up four RBI to lead the team. Guerra has only played in 18 games since coming off of the injured list, but in that time he has totalled up four home runs and an .831 OPS. It was also a huge day at the plate for Nick Montgomery, who reached base four times to extend a now six-game on base streak. Montgomery’s numbers are still lagging behind thanks to his horrible start to the season, but in recent games his swing decisions and timing have drastically improved. He has only four strikeouts in these past six games (to go along with four walks) and has bumped his OPS up 110 points in that timeframe.
On the mound it was as bad as we’ve seen from Luis Arestigueta as his command wasn’t up to the level we’re used to for him. He issued three walks in the game, and most of his trouble all came in a sequence. After an error from John Gil allowed the leadoff hitter to reach in the third inning Arestigueta collapsed, allowing four total runs before being pulled following a two-out walk. Samuel Mejia calmed things down with 4 1⁄3 scoreless innings, allowing the GreenJackets a chance to streak for the comeback. For Arestigueta this was a temporary blip on what has otherwise been an impressive year. Arestigueta doubled his walk total for the year in this game, and in every other outing his command has been far beyond his years and he has been adept at getting weak contact.
Swing and Misses
Luis Arestigueta – 6
Samuel Mejia – 5
(4-3) FCL Braves 4, (2-5) FCL Orioles 0
- Ronald Acuna Jr.: 1-3, HR, RBI, .333/.333/1.333
- Jose Perdomo, SS: 1-4, .208/.300/.250
- Cedric De Grandpre, SP: 3.1 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 0.00 ERA
- Cayman Goode, RP: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 2.35 ERA
The FCL Braves have made themselves a fun team, at least for today, with Ronald Acuna Jr. making his first (and only) rehab appearance in Florida. Acuna made his splash in his third at bat, coming up in the fifth inning and hitting a home run to extend the FCL Braves lead to 4-0. He now heads to Gwinnett, where we are all praying he gets ready quickly because the big Braves offense could use any injection of energy. There were a couple of big performances on the mound too, startung with Cedric De Grandpre. De Grandpre missed all of 2024 following Tommy John surgery, and finally got back on the mound for his first rehab start where he dominated. Seven strikeouts over 3 1⁄3 innings is impressive stuff, and now it’s time to look forward to his second chance at High-A where hopefully he can translate the swing-and-miss numbers from Single-A more effectively this time. Then there is Cayman Goode, who put a rough first outing behind him to dominate over four one-hit innings. Goode struck out five batters and only walked one, a much better line than his three walks last week, and with his high spin breaking balls we should see some more impressive days as long as he keeps his fastball under control.