Gwinnett Braves 7, Buffalo Bisons 1 Ronald Acuna, RF: 3-5, 2B, 2 RBI, run, .355/.417/.618 Carlos Franco, DH: 1-5, HR, 3 RBI, .245/.325/.375 Manny Barreda, SP: 7 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 2.53 ERA Manny Barreda was excellent over seven innings for Gwinnett and the offense broke this game open early as the Braves routed Buffalo by the score of 7-1. After his first start with the organization being, well, not particularly great, the Braves are starting to look smart for giving Barreda a chance after snatching out of the Mexican League. He hasn’t shown swing and miss type stuff, but he has been keeping the ball down and given Gwinnett quality innings, especially over his last three starts where he has combined to give up just three earned runs. Evan Phillips and Enrique Burgos came on in relief and threw a combined two scoreless innings to secure the win for Gwinnett. On offense, oh look....another great game for Ronald Acuna. After going 3-5 in this game with a double and a pair of RBIs, Acuna now has 49 multi-hit games this season and brought his OPS for the entire season up to .920 despite being 19 and being promoted twice along the way. How does he do it? In short, pitchers can’t beat him in the strike zone (at least not very often) and nearly everything he hits is hard hit. A good combination indeed. The biggest offensive blow came in the third inning where Carlos Franco blasted a three-run homer, his eighth for Gwinnett and 19th on the season, to break the game open. Rio Ruiz reached base four times including two hits and is batting .353 over his last ten games. Mississippi Braves 3, Pensacola Blue Wahoos 2 Austin Riley, 3B: 1-3, RBI, BB, .287/.336/.450 Travis Demeritte, 2B: 2-4, 2B, RBI, .222/.301/.398 Wes Parsons, SP: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 2.76 ERA Wes Parsons was dominant for Mississippi and some timely hitting including a walk-off single by Dylan Moore got Mississippi a win over Pensacola by the score of 3-2. Parsons is very quietly putting together a really good season for Mississippi. Formerly a top 30 prospect for the Braves that was plucked from obscurity in order to join pro ball in the first place, injuries derailed what looked like a promising minor league run for Parsons over the last couple of seasons. This year, however, Parsons has been a savior for Mississippi with him coming up big when Gohara, Fried, Withrow, and others missed time. He has held Double-A batters to a .214 batting average against him and he has struck out 85 batters in 88 innings for Mississippi this season. Mauricio Cabrera continues to struggle to throw strikes (nearly a 50/50 split in terms of strikes and balls for the entire season....hat tip to Garrett Spain for unearthing that little gem). On offense, Austin Riley reached base twice and has now hit in six straight games in addition to driving in a run for Mississippi as well. Travis Demeritte extended his own hitting streak to eight games with a multi-hit outing and is starting to look like the guy who started the year on fire. The hero this evening was Dylan Moore who, after Mississippi looked like they were going to not capitalize on a prime opportunity to steal this game in the bottom of the ninth, recorded his second hit to drive in Joey Meneses and give Mississippi a walk-off win. Florida Fire Frogs 8, Jupiter Hammerheads 6 Brett Cumberland, DH: 3-3, 2 2B, 1 3B, 3 RBI, HBP, run, .276/.376/.385 Alay Lago, 2B: 3-5, 2B, 3 runs, RBI, .301/.341/.407 Enderson Franco, SP: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K The Fire Frogs put up eight runs by the end of the fourth inning and after some struggles from the bullpen let Jupiter back in the game, Chase Johnson-Mullins came in and slammed the door shut as Florida won 8-6. Enderson Franco has turned into sort of a perfect org pitcher as he has traveled to multiple levels in the system and give his teams good if not great innings. After Brandon White and Junior Rincon gave up four runs to let Jupiter back in the game, Johnson-Mullins continued his recent run of dominance since returning from injury to secure the save. Opposing batters have hit just .226 against Chase his season and he has struck out 45 batters in 41 innings in 2017. On offense, Brett Cumberland went wild with three extra-base hits and the obligatory hit by pitch while driving in three runs. His propensity that has been chronicled here at Talking Chop previously will lead to him being a streaky hitter, but when he is hot he can do a ton of damage. He has also been hit by 38 pitches this season which is frankly both impressive and terrifying. Alay Lago had a three hit game of his own while Carlos Castro, Tanner Murphy, and Stephen Gaylor all had multi-hit games for Florida as the offense was clicking on all cylinders. Rome Braves 11, Columbia Fireflies 6 - F/16 Leudys Baez, RF: 3-7, HR, 4 RBI, BB, 2 runs, .278/.321/.456 Kurt Hoekstra, 1B/P: 1-6, HR, 2 RBI, 2 BB, 2 runs, .260/.321/.358 ; 2 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 3.00 ERA Alan Rangel, SP: 2 IP, 1 H, 2 R (1 ER), 1 BB, 0 K, 4.31 ERA Dear Rome Braves, I have begun to notice on nights where I have recaps to write, you have shown a propensity to like to play long extra inning games. My family misses me, so if you could stop doing that...I would take it as a kindness. Love and kisses, Eric. With that out of the way, Rome played yet another marathon game and on this day, they were victorious thanks to some solid two-way play from Kurt Hoekstra and an offensive explosion in extra innings as Rome wins by the score of 11-6. Alan Rangel had to leave this game after the second inning due to an undisclosed injury, which really turned into an issue as the Rome bullpen had to end up throwing 14 innings in this game. Two those innings were thrown by position player Kurt Hoekstra who, in his second pitching appearance on the season, gave up one earned run and got his first win as a pitcher as a pro. On offense, the aforementioned Hoekstra had a homer and drove in two runs as well. The biggest hit for Rome came off the bat of Leudys Baez in the top of the 16th as he, with two outs, hit a grand slam to break the game wide open for Rome. Rome got multi-hit games from Baez, Isranel Wilson, Marcus Mooney, Kevin Josephina, and Jordan Rodgers. Lucas Herbert did draw a walk but was otherwise held hitless. He is batting .158 over his last ten games. Danville Braves 4, Princeton Rays 5 - F/14 Kevin Maitan, SS: 1-3, 2B, BB, run, .207/.263/.293 Jean Carlos Encarnacion, 3B: 2-5, HR, RBI, BB, .300/.333/.367 Bruce Zimmerman, SP: 3 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 2.84 ERA Oh look, another crazy long extra-inning game in the minors. Sadly, this one did not result in a win as Danville went down by the score of 5-4 in 14 innings. Keep an eye on Bruce Zimmerman for Danville. After his hitless, scoreless outing, the 5th round pick for the Braves from the 2017 draft has not given up more than two earned runs in any of his appearances as a pro and has 21 strikeouts in 19 innings this season. On offense, Jean Carlos Encarnacion’s stock as a prospect has risen in a hurry this season. He hit his first home run for Danville (third on the season) in the 10th inning and has shown flashes of all five tools in his limited time in rookie ball so far. Derian Cruz had a pair of hits, but also recorded his 20th error for Danville and 36th error overall in 2017.
I think we may need to stop with the absurd comparisons we've been doing with Ronald Acuna because it's becoming clear there has never been a ball player as good as he and it's not fair to limit him with these feeble comps we've been doing. I mean calling him the next Bryce Harper or Ted Williams or Mike Trout just doesn't do him justice.
Chuck Hernandez may be a great MiLB pitching coordinator but I've not been impressed with his turn as pitching coach.
Minter pitched another scoreless inning tonight. 1.86 ERA in his last 10 appearances. Just needs to work on his walk rate. Riley 1-3, BB Allard 6.2, 3 ER, 4K, 6 H, 0 BB Wentz got beat up, Huascar Ynao was alright.
How did Matt Kemp get so fat? It's amazing the guy in LA a few years ago is now the dumpy looking clumsy left fielder we have now. He can still hit though.
csb a couple weeks ago I went to a game. On the way out we walked by the set where they do the pre/post game, I yelled out and got her attention and asked for her number. She smiled and started blushing, but the bitch didn't give me her number
Snitker's insistence on using a guy who has a 6.50 ERA last month, and over 10 this month in any situation besides mop up duty is laughable. But Snitker really cannot help himself when it comes to Jim Johnson.
Snit playing 3D chess by letting the players win games, then putting in JJ and letting him blow them to improve our draft position. #trusttheprocess.
Who could have guessed that letting minor league guys run a pro team wouldn't have the desired results.
just dont understand why they hired him. He said almost word for word he would still stay on if they hired someone else, management just said "oh fuck it" and gave him the job anyways. Bud Black should be the manager right now
I'm pretty pissed about the decision to pitch Johnson there and let him keep pitching when it was clear Johnson STILL doesn't have it. WTF... we aren't even playing baseball today, how many times do you have to see this guy blow the game?
These we’re his numbers at the time of Dansby's demotion: As you can see, while it’s a rough thing to have to go through, a demotion was certainly warranted. Swanson had produced a -0.4 WAR up to the point in the season and for the season, had been one of the worst players in baseball. But Dansby is a good kid with one of the best attitudes you’ll ever see on a young player and he took the demotion in stride. Said all the right things, went down to Gwinnett and got to work. And because baseball is baseball and weird things happen, Swanson was back in the show not even 2 weeks later. His replacement, Johan Camargo, was running out to take his position when he tripped over the first base line, hurting his knee and forcing a trip to the DL. Once again Swanson found himself in the position he started the season in, the starting SS in Atlanta. And it doesn’t look like he has any interest in giving it up. Here are his numbers since returning on August 9th: The production numbers are great obviously but the BB and K numbers are what jump out to me. When I wrote about Dansby earlier this year I noted the big red flag in his profile was the amount he strikes out relative to how little power he produces. A 23% K rate with a sub .100 ISO isn’t a profile that’s going to work. Not for a player who can’t make up that difference in value with all worldly defense. Dansby is a solid defender at SS but he needs his bat to be a valuable player in the majors. And the 14% K rate/.152 ISO he’s run since being back up looks a lot more like the profile of a solid everyday player, if not more. And these numbers aren’t just the result of some better luck. Dansby is visibly and measurably making better contact. When he was demoted his Avg Exit Velocity sat at 87 mph. Since he’s been back, that number is up to 91 mph. That's a significant jump. And dropping your K rate by over 10% while adding 4 mph to your EV is enough to get my attention. And it's not just how he's hitting the ball but where. Swanson has found the center of the diamond again For someone who sees as many sliders on the outside corner or just off the plate as Swanson does, staying up the middle and not rolling over those pitchers is paramount to any type of success. Early on in his return, he's been much more likely to either lay off those pitches all together or hit them where they're pitched. And the results speak for themselves. To be clear, this is 55 PA’s worth of data and 55 PA’s worth of data is in no way conclusive. He could go back to being the same mess he was before and we could be talking about a profile that doesn’t work again. But this is all we have to go on at the moment and there at least seems to be some improvements. And not just in the results but in underlying data as well. We’ll continue to monitor all of this obviously and see where he goes but so far, it’s encouraging. Players Eligible for the 2017 Rule 5 Draft in the Atlanta Braves Organization https://www.talkingchop.com/2017/8/...r-the-2017-rule-5-draft-in-the-atlanta-braves better not lose Gohara or Peterson
Acuna 3-4 with a double, now hitting .358/.408/.587/.995 in 180 AAA ABs He has a 13 game hit streak and hits in 23 of his last 24. He has 15 multi-hit games in that span.
He's been around. He's been a really good pitcher away from Atlanta. Just gets absolutely shelled at home