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Bryce Elder put up his best showing in awhile with eight innings of two run ball for Gwinnett It was an impressive day for a couple of offenses in the Atlanta Braves system, as two teams cleared ten runs in wins. Not so much for Mississippi, who got swept in a double header along with the absence of Nacho Alvarez. For Gwinnett the top performer was Bryce Elder, whose 11 strikeouts led the way to a 10-2 win.
(27-29) Gwinnett Stripers 10, (29-27) Norfolk Tides 2
Box Score
Statcast
Luke Williams, 3B: 2-5 HR, .256/.316/.488
Luke Waddell, SS: 1-5, HR, 4 RBI, .199/.286/.277
Bryce Elder, SP: 8 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 11 K, 4.43 ERA
It turned out to be a fantastic day for Bryce Elder, who needed a lift after the worst month of his professional career. Elder allowed six or more runs in three of his four May starts between the major leagues and Gwinnett, but on the first of June was able to mow down the Tides to lead the Stripers to a win. The Norfolk offense was having trouble finding any sort of success against Elder’s slider, so he kept going back to the well and threw the pitch over 40% of the time. Not coincidentally he put up a season high with 11 strikeouts, and was able to cover a season-high eight innings. It was just the best look we’ve gotten out of Elder in a long time, and hopefully he can use this as an opportunity to build momentum and recover some of the form that made him a solid fifth starter.
The Gwinnett offense had one of their biggest days of the season, as it was just the second time since the start of April that the Stripers were able to clear double digit runs. They battered around Tides starter Justin Armbruester in the first inning, but some of this was pure luck. The first two hits of the six run inning for Gwinnett were 71.6 mph and 55.8 mph respectively, setting up a sequence that would bring home six total runs for the Stripers. Luke Waddell hasn’t featured much in these reports this season, as despite his contact rates not dipping much it seems ultimately proven that he just doesn’t have the ability to make hard contact consistently enough to be a hitter at higher levels. Today though, Waddell had the biggest hit for the Stripers, turning on an inside cutter and yanking it just inside of the right field foul pole for a grand slam and his first home run of the season. The Stripers would tack on runs here and there throughout the game, including a home run from Luke Williams. Williams hasn’t had much time with the team, just 22 games, but still ranks second on the team with five home runs and 20 RBI.
(23-26) Mississippi Braves 1, (28-21) Montgomery Biscuits 2
Box Score
Keshawn Ogans, 3B: 1-2, RBI, .220/.270/.270
Drake Baldwin, C: 0-3, .238/.304/.323
Luis De Avila, SP: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 5.21 ERA
(23-27) Mississippi Braves 0, (29-21) Montgomery Biscuits 5
Box Score
Keshawn Ogans, 3B: 1-3, .220/.270/.270
Drake Baldwin, DH: 0-3, .238/.304/.323
Drew Parrish, SP: 5 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 4.24 ERA
A dreadful offensive series for Mississippi continued on Saturday as they scored only one run across their double header to drop two straight to the first place Biscuits. Mississippi came into these series with a shot to make up some ground and get firmly into the playoff race, but a 1-4 start to this series has them falling behind in the division standings. Most notably Mississippi was without Nacho Alvarez in both games of the double header, this coming after an off day due to the postponement of yesterday’s game.
Mississippi fought to hold on to a game one lead, as hits from Yolbert Sanchez and Tyler Tolve set up the game’s only run through the first five innings. Mississippi starter Luis De Avila was having one of his good games on Saturday, so even though he did pile up a few walks he found himself sitting pretty in the fourth inning and finished out on no-hit watch. That came to a quick end as the Biscuits got a hard hit double in the fifth inning, but overall De Avila made it through the lineup twice and put Mississippi in position to win despite the poor offensive output. Then De Avila was sent out for the sixth inning, and facing the lineup a third time was too much. The Biscuits started making contact — and a lot of it, and ran up three hits and two runs in the sixth inning to sink De Avila. It was far from all his fault mind you, the inning started out with a slow roller for an infield single and the final of two doubles was a grounder down the line that popped off of the bag, but De Avila’s inability to find swing and miss the third time through ultimately put Montgomery in a position to do damage.
Game two started out in much the same fashion with both sides fighting to do a whole lot of nothing. Mississippi found themselves in a huge position as Biscuits starter Ben Peoples issued three walks in the second inning, but the M-Braves couldn’t find a run there and wouldn’t get another runner in scoring position in the game. Drew Parrish held out as long as he could and he was sharp the first time and some change through the order, but he isn’t really at his best as he goes deeper into games and Montgomery was able to jump on him for three runs in the fifth inning. Another interesting absence from both this double header and the entire series has been Hayden Harris. Harris pitched an inning in Monday’s game against the Biscuits, but hasn’t appeared in a game since despite Mississippi playing some pretty tight contests and going with a bullpen game on Thursday. Keshawn Ogans saw his errorless streak come to an end, as a throw on a stolen base attempt bounced off of his glove to allow a run to score in the seventh inning. Ogans previously had gone 55 straight games without committing an error.
(28-20) Rome Emperors 4, (20-30) Greenville Drive 0
Box Score
Kevin Kilpatrick Jr.: 1-5, .227/.335/.389
Sabin Ceballos, 3B: 1-5, 2B, .288/.382/.375
EJ Exposito, SS: 3-5, 2B, .295/.358/.570
Jhancarlos Lara, SP: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3.68 ERA
Shay Schanaman, RP: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 4.26 ERA
Jhancarlos Lara had his best final results of the season with his scoreless outing on Saturday, showing off some flashes of returning to his 2023 form mixed with shows of what he has struggled with this season. Overall Lara walked four batters and only struck out two, but it didn’t feel like his command was overwhelming awful throughout. Rather he mostly filled the zone up, but would completely lose his feel of the strike zone for stretches and get into trouble. Lara pitched in and around the zone mostly with that fastball of his, and the Drive were able to key in on it given how much he was using it and put it in play frequently. I would hesitate to call it a good outing or even Lara’s best this year as he didn’t miss many bats despite the low run total, but it was nice to see him have a bit better feel for location and this can hopefully be his springboard to a breakout performance in the next couple of outings. While earlier starts felt hopelessly wild and out of sorts, it feels like Lara is teetering on the edge and just a couple of adjustments away from getting his feet under him.
Offensively Rome had a solid outing and were always right on the verge of breaking through, though they never quite string things together the way they have so often this year. They couldn’t break away from the Drive but slowly piled on a run at a time to take an easy win, and it was good to see EJ Exposito have a big game. Exposito has been solid latelt, and has only had one game in the past couple of weeks where he didn’t reach base, but he wasn’t really having those games he did earlier where he would be constantly sparking rallies and coming through in the clutch for Rome. Expo started off June with a three hit day and a double which led to him scoring a run. Sabin Ceballos went 1-5 for the third straight game, and despite that not being a particularly good run of play that is still enough to extend his on base streak to 26 games. Ceballos is also starting to at least show some signs of getting to power, as in the first 23 games this season he had only four extra base hits and a .045 isolated power. Over his past 18 games he has eight extra base hits and a .141 isolated power, and while it has come at some expense with regards to swing and miss (though this is heavily influenced by two three-strikeout games on Thursday and Friday) it is more than worth a few extra strikeouts to have Ceballos making any amount of hard contact.
(20-29) Augusta GreenJackets 10, (24-26) Fayetteville Woodpeckers 0
Box Score
Jace Grady, RF: 2-3, 2 BB, .288/.374/.453
Cam Magee, SS: 3-3, HR, 4 RBI, .283/.345/.370
Robert Gonzalez, CF: 1-4, BB, .186/.270/.257
Garrett Baumann: SP: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 1.76 ERA
In the first two months of the season the GreenJackets had exactly zero games of 10 or more runs scored. Which doesn’t surprise anyone given the lineup construction during that time. One game into June, however, and Augusta has one double digit scoring game to brag about. The GreenJackets absolutely trounced the Woodpeckers on Saturday, and this despite them having 15 strikeouts in the game. When they hit they hit in bunches, and the only player to not reach base in the game was Isaiah Drake. Drake went 0-4 with six strikeouts, and while I have no qualifications to question the development decisions for the Braves I can’t help but feel like they are doing him a disservice by leaving him out to dry like this at a level he isn’t ready for.
For the positive aspects of the offense, which was most of them, we’ll start with Cam Magee. Magee has sorely been missed, both for his consistent play at the shortstop position and ability to make contact at a high rate. He had an outstanding game on his birthday, slugging his first home run and accounting for five of Augusta’s ten runs in the game. Magee isn’t the best hitter partially because of his aggression on pitches out of the zone, but he is a player who hits a ton of line drives and has solid contact rates, and with his defensive chops at the shortstop position there is some utility upside there. Jace Grady hit a bit of a cold spell there at the end of May, but started out his June about as well as he could have by reaching base four times and scoring three runs.
The Woodpeckers are a fairly aggressive and contact-oriented team overall, and these are the types of lineups that Garrett Baumann tends to feast on. He did just that on Saturday, utilizing the Woodpeckers tendency to look for early count contact to his advantage as he pounded them with changeups and sinkers to force ground balls. Baumann never faced a huge challenge in this game as Fayetteville played perfectly into his style, and after a bit of a hiccup in his last outing it is good to see him get back on track and in control once again. Baumann still isn’t missing enough right handed bats and is going to see growing pains against more selective hitters at the upper levels who may not chase sinkers and changeups at the edge early in counts as often as Single-A hitters do. However his ability to command his sinker away and to the lower half along with his advanced changeup has made him a force in the Carolina League and he has plenty of time to find a breaking ball that works for him.
(5-16) FCL Braves 4, (13-7) FCL Rays 7
Box Score
John Gil, SS: 2-4, BB, .260/.348/.312
Diego Benitez, 3B: 1-3, BB, 2 RBI, .200/.333/.200
Whilmer Guerra, SP: 4 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 6.57 ERA
The FCL Braves came so close in this one, scoring three runs in the first inning and taking a lead into the sixth inning. Diego Benitez gave them a lift in that inning with a two-run single, though he has continued to struggle even upon his demotion. Unfortunately Carter Rees - an undrafted free agent signing by the Angels that was released and then picked up by Atlanta - would go on to allow five runs in the sixth inning to sink the Braves chances. Rees has been pretty awful with Atlanta due to his control issues, but had an impressive draft league showing last season with a 0.59 ERA and 23 strikeouts in 15 1⁄3 innings. That and a riding fastball in the mid-90s is probably enough to keep him in the organization for a bit, and with his size I could see the Braves getting more velocity (and much better command) if they can work on his mechanics.
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Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
Bryce Elder put up his best showing in awhile with eight innings of two run ball for Gwinnett It was an impressive day for a couple of offenses in the Atlanta Braves system, as two teams cleared ten runs in wins. Not so much for Mississippi, who got swept in a double header along with the absence of Nacho Alvarez. For Gwinnett the top performer was Bryce Elder, whose 11 strikeouts led the way to a 10-2 win.
(27-29) Gwinnett Stripers 10, (29-27) Norfolk Tides 2
Box Score
Statcast
Luke Williams, 3B: 2-5 HR, .256/.316/.488
Luke Waddell, SS: 1-5, HR, 4 RBI, .199/.286/.277
Bryce Elder, SP: 8 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 11 K, 4.43 ERA
It turned out to be a fantastic day for Bryce Elder, who needed a lift after the worst month of his professional career. Elder allowed six or more runs in three of his four May starts between the major leagues and Gwinnett, but on the first of June was able to mow down the Tides to lead the Stripers to a win. The Norfolk offense was having trouble finding any sort of success against Elder’s slider, so he kept going back to the well and threw the pitch over 40% of the time. Not coincidentally he put up a season high with 11 strikeouts, and was able to cover a season-high eight innings. It was just the best look we’ve gotten out of Elder in a long time, and hopefully he can use this as an opportunity to build momentum and recover some of the form that made him a solid fifth starter.
The Gwinnett offense had one of their biggest days of the season, as it was just the second time since the start of April that the Stripers were able to clear double digit runs. They battered around Tides starter Justin Armbruester in the first inning, but some of this was pure luck. The first two hits of the six run inning for Gwinnett were 71.6 mph and 55.8 mph respectively, setting up a sequence that would bring home six total runs for the Stripers. Luke Waddell hasn’t featured much in these reports this season, as despite his contact rates not dipping much it seems ultimately proven that he just doesn’t have the ability to make hard contact consistently enough to be a hitter at higher levels. Today though, Waddell had the biggest hit for the Stripers, turning on an inside cutter and yanking it just inside of the right field foul pole for a grand slam and his first home run of the season. The Stripers would tack on runs here and there throughout the game, including a home run from Luke Williams. Williams hasn’t had much time with the team, just 22 games, but still ranks second on the team with five home runs and 20 RBI.
(23-26) Mississippi Braves 1, (28-21) Montgomery Biscuits 2
Box Score
Keshawn Ogans, 3B: 1-2, RBI, .220/.270/.270
Drake Baldwin, C: 0-3, .238/.304/.323
Luis De Avila, SP: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 5.21 ERA
(23-27) Mississippi Braves 0, (29-21) Montgomery Biscuits 5
Box Score
Keshawn Ogans, 3B: 1-3, .220/.270/.270
Drake Baldwin, DH: 0-3, .238/.304/.323
Drew Parrish, SP: 5 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 4.24 ERA
A dreadful offensive series for Mississippi continued on Saturday as they scored only one run across their double header to drop two straight to the first place Biscuits. Mississippi came into these series with a shot to make up some ground and get firmly into the playoff race, but a 1-4 start to this series has them falling behind in the division standings. Most notably Mississippi was without Nacho Alvarez in both games of the double header, this coming after an off day due to the postponement of yesterday’s game.
Mississippi fought to hold on to a game one lead, as hits from Yolbert Sanchez and Tyler Tolve set up the game’s only run through the first five innings. Mississippi starter Luis De Avila was having one of his good games on Saturday, so even though he did pile up a few walks he found himself sitting pretty in the fourth inning and finished out on no-hit watch. That came to a quick end as the Biscuits got a hard hit double in the fifth inning, but overall De Avila made it through the lineup twice and put Mississippi in position to win despite the poor offensive output. Then De Avila was sent out for the sixth inning, and facing the lineup a third time was too much. The Biscuits started making contact — and a lot of it, and ran up three hits and two runs in the sixth inning to sink De Avila. It was far from all his fault mind you, the inning started out with a slow roller for an infield single and the final of two doubles was a grounder down the line that popped off of the bag, but De Avila’s inability to find swing and miss the third time through ultimately put Montgomery in a position to do damage.
Game two started out in much the same fashion with both sides fighting to do a whole lot of nothing. Mississippi found themselves in a huge position as Biscuits starter Ben Peoples issued three walks in the second inning, but the M-Braves couldn’t find a run there and wouldn’t get another runner in scoring position in the game. Drew Parrish held out as long as he could and he was sharp the first time and some change through the order, but he isn’t really at his best as he goes deeper into games and Montgomery was able to jump on him for three runs in the fifth inning. Another interesting absence from both this double header and the entire series has been Hayden Harris. Harris pitched an inning in Monday’s game against the Biscuits, but hasn’t appeared in a game since despite Mississippi playing some pretty tight contests and going with a bullpen game on Thursday. Keshawn Ogans saw his errorless streak come to an end, as a throw on a stolen base attempt bounced off of his glove to allow a run to score in the seventh inning. Ogans previously had gone 55 straight games without committing an error.
(28-20) Rome Emperors 4, (20-30) Greenville Drive 0
Box Score
Kevin Kilpatrick Jr.: 1-5, .227/.335/.389
Sabin Ceballos, 3B: 1-5, 2B, .288/.382/.375
EJ Exposito, SS: 3-5, 2B, .295/.358/.570
Jhancarlos Lara, SP: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 3.68 ERA
Shay Schanaman, RP: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 4.26 ERA
Jhancarlos Lara had his best final results of the season with his scoreless outing on Saturday, showing off some flashes of returning to his 2023 form mixed with shows of what he has struggled with this season. Overall Lara walked four batters and only struck out two, but it didn’t feel like his command was overwhelming awful throughout. Rather he mostly filled the zone up, but would completely lose his feel of the strike zone for stretches and get into trouble. Lara pitched in and around the zone mostly with that fastball of his, and the Drive were able to key in on it given how much he was using it and put it in play frequently. I would hesitate to call it a good outing or even Lara’s best this year as he didn’t miss many bats despite the low run total, but it was nice to see him have a bit better feel for location and this can hopefully be his springboard to a breakout performance in the next couple of outings. While earlier starts felt hopelessly wild and out of sorts, it feels like Lara is teetering on the edge and just a couple of adjustments away from getting his feet under him.
Offensively Rome had a solid outing and were always right on the verge of breaking through, though they never quite string things together the way they have so often this year. They couldn’t break away from the Drive but slowly piled on a run at a time to take an easy win, and it was good to see EJ Exposito have a big game. Exposito has been solid latelt, and has only had one game in the past couple of weeks where he didn’t reach base, but he wasn’t really having those games he did earlier where he would be constantly sparking rallies and coming through in the clutch for Rome. Expo started off June with a three hit day and a double which led to him scoring a run. Sabin Ceballos went 1-5 for the third straight game, and despite that not being a particularly good run of play that is still enough to extend his on base streak to 26 games. Ceballos is also starting to at least show some signs of getting to power, as in the first 23 games this season he had only four extra base hits and a .045 isolated power. Over his past 18 games he has eight extra base hits and a .141 isolated power, and while it has come at some expense with regards to swing and miss (though this is heavily influenced by two three-strikeout games on Thursday and Friday) it is more than worth a few extra strikeouts to have Ceballos making any amount of hard contact.
(20-29) Augusta GreenJackets 10, (24-26) Fayetteville Woodpeckers 0
Box Score
Jace Grady, RF: 2-3, 2 BB, .288/.374/.453
Cam Magee, SS: 3-3, HR, 4 RBI, .283/.345/.370
Robert Gonzalez, CF: 1-4, BB, .186/.270/.257
Garrett Baumann: SP: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 1.76 ERA
In the first two months of the season the GreenJackets had exactly zero games of 10 or more runs scored. Which doesn’t surprise anyone given the lineup construction during that time. One game into June, however, and Augusta has one double digit scoring game to brag about. The GreenJackets absolutely trounced the Woodpeckers on Saturday, and this despite them having 15 strikeouts in the game. When they hit they hit in bunches, and the only player to not reach base in the game was Isaiah Drake. Drake went 0-4 with six strikeouts, and while I have no qualifications to question the development decisions for the Braves I can’t help but feel like they are doing him a disservice by leaving him out to dry like this at a level he isn’t ready for.
For the positive aspects of the offense, which was most of them, we’ll start with Cam Magee. Magee has sorely been missed, both for his consistent play at the shortstop position and ability to make contact at a high rate. He had an outstanding game on his birthday, slugging his first home run and accounting for five of Augusta’s ten runs in the game. Magee isn’t the best hitter partially because of his aggression on pitches out of the zone, but he is a player who hits a ton of line drives and has solid contact rates, and with his defensive chops at the shortstop position there is some utility upside there. Jace Grady hit a bit of a cold spell there at the end of May, but started out his June about as well as he could have by reaching base four times and scoring three runs.
The Woodpeckers are a fairly aggressive and contact-oriented team overall, and these are the types of lineups that Garrett Baumann tends to feast on. He did just that on Saturday, utilizing the Woodpeckers tendency to look for early count contact to his advantage as he pounded them with changeups and sinkers to force ground balls. Baumann never faced a huge challenge in this game as Fayetteville played perfectly into his style, and after a bit of a hiccup in his last outing it is good to see him get back on track and in control once again. Baumann still isn’t missing enough right handed bats and is going to see growing pains against more selective hitters at the upper levels who may not chase sinkers and changeups at the edge early in counts as often as Single-A hitters do. However his ability to command his sinker away and to the lower half along with his advanced changeup has made him a force in the Carolina League and he has plenty of time to find a breaking ball that works for him.
(5-16) FCL Braves 4, (13-7) FCL Rays 7
Box Score
John Gil, SS: 2-4, BB, .260/.348/.312
Diego Benitez, 3B: 1-3, BB, 2 RBI, .200/.333/.200
Whilmer Guerra, SP: 4 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 6.57 ERA
The FCL Braves came so close in this one, scoring three runs in the first inning and taking a lead into the sixth inning. Diego Benitez gave them a lift in that inning with a two-run single, though he has continued to struggle even upon his demotion. Unfortunately Carter Rees - an undrafted free agent signing by the Angels that was released and then picked up by Atlanta - would go on to allow five runs in the sixth inning to sink the Braves chances. Rees has been pretty awful with Atlanta due to his control issues, but had an impressive draft league showing last season with a 0.59 ERA and 23 strikeouts in 15 1⁄3 innings. That and a riding fastball in the mid-90s is probably enough to keep him in the organization for a bit, and with his size I could see the Braves getting more velocity (and much better command) if they can work on his mechanics.
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