Triple-A Rochester Red Wings
The Red Wings played those 7-inning doubleheaders, and Cade Cavalli was given the afternoon start, and he bounced back in a huge way with his best start of the season. With 5 1/3 no-hit innngs of shutout baseball, manager Matt LeCroy pulled him after a 6th inning walk. The bullpen nailed down the win in that game. Sure, we would have liked to have seen Cavalli put away more batters with strikeouts as he only tallied one on the day. But the contact he was giving up was weak and it got him into the sixth inning on a good pitch count. Luis Garcia was finally cooled off in this one. Jake Noll and Josh Palacios were the hitting stars and provided enough of the offense with two-hits apiece in this 3-0 win in Game 1. In the nightcap’s 4-2 loss, it was Andrew Young‘s 3-for-3 night which was most of the offense. Unfortunately Young is still below Mendoza on the season. Garcia did not play in the second game nor did Andrew Stevenson and Dee Strange-Gordon. It was good to see Tyler Clippard put up a zero as he closed out the game for Rochester. The rest of the Red Wing’s pitching in Game 2 was not good as they dropped to 12-11 on the season.Farm System final notes 🎶
The Nats’ minor league system had quite the day with the top two prospects, and a few others in the system turning in big days. With Cavalli and House notching good days, it has to be a big relief for the player development people. It will also be interesting to see how the system is re-ranked in the mid-season reports. Of note on Cavalli per a source who told TalkNats that the Iron Pigs had a mound adjustment that caused almost all of the pitchers in that series to have issues with their landing area and could have contributed to Cavalli’s poor start there earlier in the week. According to the source, the Iron Pigs had to lower the height of the mound but they didn’t do a good job of reconfiguring the landing area down the slope.
Brady House in his Star Wars jersey; Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
Washington’s minor league farm system update!
What a day down on the farm to see some of the top prospects in the Washington Nationals’ system having big games. Cade Cavalli almost had a notable achievement in one of those 7-inning doubleheaders, and Brady House bounced back from the worst day in his career on Friday which is significant.Class-A Fredericksburg “FredNats” Nationals
Star Wars night at Fredericksburg along with all of the stars in the lineup added to a beautiful evening and another sell-out for Fredericksburg. People are going there just to see good baseball and making the road trip. If you were worried about Brady House, he snapped back into form a crushed a line drive into the left-center field gap for an RBI double. After the play, he stood straight up on the bag like he had just climbed up to the peak of a mountain. After a 5 K night just 24-hours before, House probably felt that way, and he helped his team defeat the other contender from the Rays’ organization (12-8) with a nice 6-1 victory. The FredNats improved to a league leading 14-6 record. Beside Viandel Pena (1-2, Sac) Drew Millas (1-3), and Jacob Young (1-3), most of the other usual contributors were quiet on this day. Lefty starter Dustin Saenz was solid with a 6.0 inning one-run and 5 K outing. The bullpen finished up the final three innings and were 1-hit from perfection while striking out six RiverDogs’ batters.High-A Wilmington Blue Rocks
At Wilmington, Darren Baker has been on fire this week, and he is now batting .306 after he was sinking below .250 earlier in the week. The Blue Rocks dropped this one as the bullpen lost the lead in the eighth inning. The Blue Rocks fought back in this after Seth Shuman was bombed and pulled in the first inning after he gave up four runs. Shuman had looked really good this season up to this point. That won’t help his ERA, but bad outings happen. Third baseman José Sánchez had his best game of the season going 3-for-4. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Yasel Antuna whose slide continues with another 0-for game. This time he was 0-for-3 with two walks and watched his batting average slip to .226. Okay, the 22-year-old has a .410 OBP, but he has to hit and his .716 OPS doesn’t even rank top-5 on his team. Antuna is supposed to be the top prospect on this team, and with Jordy Barley batting .167, and Drew Mendoza (.693 OPS) struggling, it is Baker who is the standout on this team for position players. Baker isn’t even in the Top-3o on MLB Pipeline’s rankings.Double-A Harrisburg Senators
Steven Fuentes started for the Senators and went 6.0 innings allowing just one-run on six hits while striking out five. Fuentes did get himself into a bases loaded one-out situation in the fifth in which he struck out the final two batters of the inning. Unfortunately the bullpen couldn’t hold it together and Francys Peguero took the loss, his first on the season. Once again, Jake Alu was the offensive star for this team. All he does is hit. He had two hits including his second home run of the season.Triple-A Rochester Red Wings
The Red Wings played those 7-inning doubleheaders, and Cade Cavalli was given the afternoon start, and he bounced back in a huge way with his best start of the season. With 5 1/3 no-hit innngs of shutout baseball, manager Matt LeCroy pulled him after a 6th inning walk. The bullpen nailed down the win in that game. Sure, we would have liked to have seen Cavalli put away more batters with strikeouts as he only tallied one on the day. But the contact he was giving up was weak and it got him into the sixth inning on a good pitch count. Luis Garcia was finally cooled off in this one. Jake Noll and Josh Palacios were the hitting stars and provided enough of the offense with two-hits apiece in this 3-0 win in Game 1. In the nightcap’s 4-2 loss, it was Andrew Young‘s 3-for-3 night which was most of the offense. Unfortunately Young is still below Mendoza on the season. Garcia did not play in the second game nor did Andrew Stevenson and Dee Strange-Gordon. It was good to see Tyler Clippard put up a zero as he closed out the game for Rochester. The rest of the Red Wing’s pitching in Game 2 was not good as they dropped to 12-11 on the season.Farm System final notes 🎶
The Nats’ minor league system had quite the day with the top two prospects, and a few others in the system turning in big days. With Cavalli and House notching good days, it has to be a big relief for the player development people. It will also be interesting to see how the system is re-ranked in the mid-season reports. Of note on Cavalli per a source who told TalkNats that the Iron Pigs had a mound adjustment that caused almost all of the pitchers in that series to have issues with their landing area and could have contributed to Cavalli’s poor start there earlier in the week. According to the source, the Iron Pigs had to lower the height of the mound but they didn’t do a good job of reconfiguring the landing area down the slope.Brady House in his Star Wars jersey; Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
