If you’re an Atlanta Braves fan, or perhaps just an Augusta GreenJackets fan, your TGIF could refer to nothing more than a love of GreenJackets starter Didier Fuentes. Fuentes looked great, at least for one inning until rain ended the evening for Augusta. But there is far more to look at on the Braves system from Friday, including a stellar outing from the (surprise?) leader of Mississippi’s staff Ian Mejia.
(18-18) Gwinnett Stripers 4, (14-22) Charlotte Knights 2
- JP Martinez, RF: 1-3, RBI, .293/.371/.455
- Forrest Wall, DH: 2-3, 2B, BB, RBI, .310/.444/.448
- Allan Winans, SP: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 3.27 ERA
It wasn’t the most dominating Allan Winans performance that we’ve seen this season, but he was effective nonetheless as he had the Knights hitting weak contact for much of his outing until they got to him late. The fifth inning for Winans saw him leave his secondaries over the plate too often and Charlotte was able to key in on it, though overall even with Winans not having his best feel for burying the changeup and slider he was able to avoid catastrophe. This sort of location probably doesn’t work against big league hitters — Charlotte has the third-lowest OPS in the International league — but he made it work on Friday to keep Gwinnett in the game.
The Stripers offense, for their part, did enough to get this win and overall this season when they score four or more runs they are 13-5. It’s a fantastic pitching staff, but a truly dreadful offense that is thankfully facing a pretty bad pitching staff on Charlotte’s end. Knights starter Jonathan Cannon — who locals may recognize from his time with the Georgia Bulldogs — started out strong and then completely lost his feel in the later innings of his outing. Gwinnett pounced, stringing together hits in a three-run fifth inning including a 106 mph double from Forrest Wall. Wall has been by far the leader of this offense since being returned to Gwinnett, and he was all over the place on Friday reaching base three times and accounting for two of Gwinnett’s runs.
(11-20) Mississippi Braves 8, (15-15) Rocket City Trash Pandas 0
- Nacho Alvarez, DH: 1-5, 2 RBI, .284/.397/.333
- Drake Baldwin, C: 2-3, BB, HBP, 2 RBI, .232/.306/.293
- Keshawn Ogans, 3B: 2-5, 3B, RBI, .202/.260/.247
- Ian Mejia, SP: 5.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 2.02 ERA
- Rolddy Munoz, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 4.91 ERA
Ian Mejia’s dominance this season and a nine strikeout performance gives him the Southern League lead in total strikeouts. While often last season Mejia’s good games were heavily reliant on his ability to locate, get ahead in counts, and fool hitters this season he has been racking up swing-and-miss at a high rate. His slider had the Trash Pandas seeing ghosts on Friday, and he forced a total of 19 whiffs. His ability to put his slider in absolutely perfect spots on a consistent basis has separated the pitch from others with similar movement, and this season he has put himself on another level. Fortunately for Mejia he also got rare help from the Mississippi offense, as they teed off for eight runs against Rocket City.
I mentioned in yesterday’s game just how much contact Nacho Alvarez has been making lately, so of course he went and struck out twice in this game. Alvarez struggled a bit against the curveball of Trash Pandas starter Chase Chaney, as that was the pitch that both got a whiff for the first strikeout and locked him up as he watched the ball go right down the middle for number two. Alvarez would ultimately get his revenge against Chaney, turning on an inner half fastball for a two-run single in the sixth inning. Drake Baldwin reached base four times in this game, a performance that was desperately needed given his -2 wRC+ in his prior 11 games. It’s been a struggle for Baldwin to pick pitches all year as hasn’t been finding consistent power on his fastball, though there has been an uptick in contact in the month of May for him. Rolddy Munoz has taken the system by storm this season, and added on a three strikeout performance on Friday to give him eight in his 3 2⁄3 innings since promotion. Munoz leads the system by a wide margin with his 46.6% strikeout rate this season, a number which ranks within the top 1% of all minor league pitchers.
(16-13) Rome Emperors 3, (17-14) Brooklyn Cyclones 6
- Sabin Ceballos, 3B: 1-4, 2B, RBI, .232/.347/.293
- Kevin Kilpatrick Jr., CF: 1-4, .280/.338/.424
- EJ Exposito, 2B: 2-4, 2B, RBI, .286/.356/.649
- Drue Hackenberg, SP: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 K, 3.90 ERA
This was another outing for Drue Hackenberg where the strike-throwing ability we expected from him was not there, and so far this year he has run a surprisingly steep 15.1% walk rate. The biggest issue with Hackenberg is his tendency to land with his front half closed off, forcing him to work across his body. That along with his arm often lagging behind in his delivery has caused quite a bit of issues with consistency this season, and he was certainly struggling with his landing spot on Thursday. This is an issue that dates back to his time at Virginia Tech, and the Braves seem to be trying to iron it out and get him more on line to home plate and my feeling is some of his issues are just the adjustment to trying to find comfort with changes to his delivery. This is the point at which you hope his athleticism can take over and allow him to take to those adjustments.
Overall it ended up not being a completely terrible start for Hackenberg, as he mostly missed horizontally (has all year) and was able to keep his sinker in the bottom half of the zone and force a lot of ground balls. That’s allowed him to escape without giving up huge innings with extra base hits contributing to poor lines, though yesterday his defense let him down and Rome committed four total errors. Two of these would come in the tenth inning of this game, leading to Rob Griswold allowing three unearned runs in the 6-3 loss. Rome’s offense was primarily carried by a two run third inning, where we got a rare extra base hit out of Sabin Ceballos. There certainly can’t be much complaint about the rate Ceballos has gotten on base this season, although I’m sure many would be pleased if he would get back to lifting the ball more consistently to hit for power. Even this double wasn’t much of a display of strength, as he bounced a ball down the third base line that skipped over the bag and into the corner. EJ Exposito has been displaying power, and he hit one to the warning track the opposite way for a double to score Ceballos. Exposito has ten extra base hits in his last 11 games, putting up a 270 wRC+ in that span.
(14-15) Augusta GreenJackets 2, (11-18) Myrtle Beach Pelicans 0
SUSPENDED
- Didier Fuentes, SP: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 2.50 ERA
This game ended up starting and then getting suspended early on, and it’s a real shame for Didier Fuentes. Fuentes had his best first inning of the season with his two strikeouts, as he was able to find a feel for the zone earlier than we’ve seen in past starts. Fuentes got seven whiffs in his lone inning of work. Despite this being his second trip to the league he is the sixth-youngest Carolina league pitcher to throw this season, and he’s held his own quite well. He’s slightly improved his strikeout rate to 24.6%, while cutting nearly two percentage points off of his walk rate to get it 8.7%. Still, he’s definitely zone-filling over really having a feel for command. While Fuentes sits in the low-90’s with his fastball, his arm speed is a plus and I can see him adding velocity as he matures and continues in the Braves program. He has definitely gotten a better feel for his fastball location than where he was on opening day, as he seemed just to not quite be ready out of camp, and over his past three starts he has 12 strikeouts (32.4%) to 3 walks (8.1%) against 37 batters faced.
(0-5) FCL Braves 8, (4-1) FCL Rays 15
- Mario Baez, SS: 1-4, BB, 2 RBI, .235/.316/.235
- John Estevez, LF-CF: 1-4, 2B, .214/.421/.429
- Douglas Glod: RF: 1-5, 2 RBI, .188/.278/.188
- Marco Patino, SP: 1.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 1 K, 16.20 ERA
The FCL Braves had an offensive breakout for the first time this season, racking up eight runs off of the Rays affiliate. Still lost though. It’s not a surprise to see this team struggling — they are one of the youngest teams in the league and primarily built off of the promotions from last seasons DSL roster. Starting pitcher Marco Patino had a tough day on the mound with four walks in 1 2⁄3 innings, but these struggles aside he actually comes in as a relatively interesting arm at least when you consider that he actually started out in the Florida Complex League last year as an 18 year old. Patino only walked six batters in 25 innings last season, and this is his first taste of being a starting pitcher as a professional. On offense 17 year old John Estevez continues to be the guy who has hit well all season, as he adds a double to his register for his second extra base hit in five games.
