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Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images
Mejia capped off his season with Mississippi by throwing another fantastic game (69-74) Gwinnett Stripers 1, (67-74) Buffalo Bisons 4
Box Score
Statcast
Nacho Alvarez Jr, 3B: 0-3, BB, .300/.407/.484
Drake Baldwin, C: 0-3, BB, .292/.405/.484
Domingo Gonzalez, SP: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 3.81 ERA
Tyler Matzek, RP: 2.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 5.79 ERA
Gwinnett had to cover their nine innings with a bullpen game, and for the most part they kept themselves in the game but couldn’t get any support from the offense yet again. Domingo Gonzalez got the ball as the opener, his first time in that role this season, and got the Stripers off to a solid start with two scoreless innings. Gonzalez’s slider was, as usual, dominant and forced nine whiffs, but whether random fluctuation or a result of taking something off of his fastball to try to provide the Stripers length Gonzalez averaged his lowest fastball velocity this season. Hitters were able to make contact against Gonzalez’s fastball but didn’t hit him hard, and Gonzalez continued his stretch of dominance that stretched back to the start of August. Since the beginning of August he has made 13 appearances and pitched to a 2.16 ERA and 2.85 FIP while striking out 37.7% of batters faced. He lands in the 94th percentile in whiff rate in Triple-A during this timeframe, and his performance all season has put him in a position to be added to the 40 man this winter to avoid being selected in the Rule 5 draft and to potentially make his major league debut next season. His 39.4% strikeout rate this season leads the Braves system minimum 40 innings pitched and both that and his 29.6% K-BB% is in the 99th percentile across all of minor league baseball.
Gwinnett’s offense woke up a bit in the third inning, but it was really Justin Dean who did the work, with the help of some questionable defense, to bring in the Stripers only run. Dean hit a hot shot over to Bo Bichette at shortstop, which somehow got past Bichette event though it looked like he had a fairly clean play on the ball. Instead the ball skipped off of Bichette’s glove, and Dean never slowed down and was able to stretch the play into what was ruled a double. Honestly not sure how that wasn’t ruled an error, but in any case Dean got a great read on pitcher Trenton Wallace to steal third base, then scored on a Luke Williams sacrifice fly.
This was the only run of the game for Gwinnett, and overall for the team, and Drake Baldwin and Nacho Alvarez, it was a tough day at the plate. Baldwin in particular has struggled this series, as after being so dominant and so strikeout-averse for a good month there he has had issues making contact over the past few games. Baldwin struggled in his matchup with Wallace, a lefty with a low release that is difficult for left handed batters to pick up, and had three whiffs on Wallace’s slider including a first inning swinging strikeout with two runners on. Baldwin has had great results on secondary pitches this season but in his past three games has eight whiffs on sliders though six of those have come against low arm slot lefties. In the fourth inning matchup Baldwin got a better look at that slider and hit it over 100 mph, but it was a grounder right to the second baseman for an out. Baldwin also drew a walk in the sixth inning, then in his final plate appearance got just a bit under a cutter at the bottom of the zone and flew out to right center field. Baldwin has been hitting more fly balls to the pull side in recent weeks, and if Triple-A has gotten the same batch of low-drag, deader balls as we’ve seen at the big league level it could help explain why we haven’t seen quite as many scorched gappers lately. Baldwin’s big struggles this series have been against those left handed arms mentioned, which isn’t really a huge surprise given that Baldwin struggled with lefties last season and those guys are tough on even the best left-handed hitters.
Nacho Alvarez was one of those runners on base in the first inning, as he just waited out five straight sinkers and four of them missed the zone for him to draw a walk. He got his bat off of his shoulder in the third inning and popped up a slider on the inner half, his final matchup with Wallace. It was overall a bit of a rougher day than yesterday for Alvarez, who in the sixth inning got a good fastball to hit but was late on it, and even though he did hit it hard he didn’t get around on it and just hit it straight into the ground over to second base. He got caught watching a fastball middle-middle in the eighth inning for a strikeout. Alvarez just isn’t getting good results on the pull side, but where he has improved lately is both the rate and quality of contact up the middle. Over the past two weeks he has an average exit velocity of 90.7 mph on straightaway hits, and has been lifting the ball in that direction as well. Hopefully this is an indication of him getting more on time to pitches, especially considering seven of the 13 batted balls in that span have been off of fastballs.
Gonzalez came back out to face the nine hitter in the third inning, and despite jamming him with an inside fastball the batter was able to flare one the opposite way for a leadoff single. Parker Dunshee finished off the third inning to strand that runner, but got hit around in the fourth inning and allowed a run. While he only allowed one hard hit ball in the inning — a leadoff fly out — a medium-hit liner into the gap was just out of the reach of Justin Dean who saw the ball fall out of his glove after a great diving attempt. This led to a double, and Buffalo would bring the runner around to score. Tyler Matzek had a solid outing and forced a lot of ground ball contact, but he hasn’t been missing bats since returning to the Braves and after going 2 2⁄3 scoreless innings the final batter he faced chased him from the game with a two out single. This brought in Tommy Doyle, the final pitcher of the day, and ultimately the pitcher of record in the game. Bo Bichette hit a hard double off of Doyle that score the go ahead run, charged to Matzek, and Alan Roden would go deep on a hanging cutter to put the game out of reach for a struggling offense.
Swing and Misses
Domingo Gonzalez - 4
Tommy Doyle - 4
(63-72) Mississippi Braves 6, (65-69) Biloxi Shuckers 0
Box Score
Cody Milligan, CF: 2-3, 2B, RBI, .242/.306/.358
David McCabe, DH: 1-4, RBI, .132/.272/.202
Ian Mejia, SP: 6.1 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 3.47 ERA
The Mississippi offense has decided scoring runs are cool, and for the second straight day a big inning drove them to a win. Earlier this season Brandon Parker went on an extreme heater for a week, hitting five home runs in an eight game stretch for Mississippi that accounted for most of his six home runs on the season coming into the season. He then went on an awful stretch where he didn’t have a home run for 34 games and had an OPS of just .407, making him quite an unlikely hero to resurrect this Mississippi offense. Yet here we are, with Parker on another incredible streak having now hit home runs in three straight games. Shuckers starter Adam Seminaris didn’t have a fun time in the second inning, starting with a walk to Ethan Workinger and a sharp line out from Adam Zebrowski that would portend the coming avalanche. Bryson Horne snuck a hit through off of the glove of the diving second baseman and Keshawn Ogans turned on an inside slider for an RBI single, but following a Cade Bunnell strikeout Seminaris was in perfect position to escape with minimal damage. He had two outs and the nine hole hitter up, but Parker had different plans for the inning. Seminaris left an 89 mph fastball on the inner edge and failed to get it up on the zone, right in the wheelhouse for Parker to turn and crush a three-run home run into the trees in left field for a 4-0 M-Braves lead. The bleeding wouldn’t stop there though, as the second baseman booted an awkward hop on a Cal Conley ground ball. Cody Milligan stayed hot at the plate and gapped a 3-2 fastball for an RBI double, and David McCabe capped the inning and Seminaris’s day by ripping a base hit down the line to score the sixth run of the inning. Back to Milligan and staying hot, he is now on a six game hitting streak and over his past 17 has only struck out 15% of the time while posting a .322/.394/.441 (148 wRC+) slash line.
In addition to the offensive outburst the M-Braves got a brilliant final (?) start to the season from Ian Mejia, who went what was ultimately a complete game 6 1⁄3 scoreless innings. Mejia has been a fascinating player to watch develop this season, because he started so strong before really spending most of the season trying to find his identity. Mejia wasn’t landing his slider all that well this game and didn’t miss many bats, but his mix of pitches was able to keep Biloxi off balance and force a lot of weak contact. One of the prime developments for Mejia has been his velocity. He mostly sat 90-92 at the outset of the season, but has not only been sitting 91-94 for the second half of the season but in this game held that velocity deep into the game. While his command and ability to elevate has not been as consistent this year, if he can get used to these adjustments and get back to the 60 grade command he showed earlier in the year along with his improved changeup he could start getting more attention. His changeup is a pitch he locates much better now than a few months ago, and one he can go to as a consistent weapon against left-handed batters, and he utilized it well this game to get swing-and-miss. Later in the game though his command did start to falter as he seemed to get tired, but all in all Mejia has made noticeable improvements on his two main weaknesses — lack of a consistent third pitch and below average velocity — and that sets him up better in the long term even if the consistency of his slider and his command has been a bit less than ideal lately. Mejia also seems to be toying with a cut fastball for much of the season, and added depth to the arsenal of a player with no stand out pitch is certainly a benefit. The question now is whether Mejia or yesterday’s starter Lucas Braun gets the bump to Triple-A next week. With the Stripers utilizing a bullpen game for Saturday there is a wide open slot in the rotation that either would be in line to fill and I would expect one of the two to not quite be done yet.
Swing and Misses
Ian Mejia - 8
<img alt="Atlanta Braves v Boston Red Sox" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/08gw2OJsETcp7Tz37Y8GPzt9f8w=/0x0:3448x2299/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73587001/1583056740.0.jpg">
Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images
Mejia capped off his season with Mississippi by throwing another fantastic game (69-74) Gwinnett Stripers 1, (67-74) Buffalo Bisons 4
Box Score
Statcast
Nacho Alvarez Jr, 3B: 0-3, BB, .300/.407/.484
Drake Baldwin, C: 0-3, BB, .292/.405/.484
Domingo Gonzalez, SP: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 3.81 ERA
Tyler Matzek, RP: 2.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 5.79 ERA
Gwinnett had to cover their nine innings with a bullpen game, and for the most part they kept themselves in the game but couldn’t get any support from the offense yet again. Domingo Gonzalez got the ball as the opener, his first time in that role this season, and got the Stripers off to a solid start with two scoreless innings. Gonzalez’s slider was, as usual, dominant and forced nine whiffs, but whether random fluctuation or a result of taking something off of his fastball to try to provide the Stripers length Gonzalez averaged his lowest fastball velocity this season. Hitters were able to make contact against Gonzalez’s fastball but didn’t hit him hard, and Gonzalez continued his stretch of dominance that stretched back to the start of August. Since the beginning of August he has made 13 appearances and pitched to a 2.16 ERA and 2.85 FIP while striking out 37.7% of batters faced. He lands in the 94th percentile in whiff rate in Triple-A during this timeframe, and his performance all season has put him in a position to be added to the 40 man this winter to avoid being selected in the Rule 5 draft and to potentially make his major league debut next season. His 39.4% strikeout rate this season leads the Braves system minimum 40 innings pitched and both that and his 29.6% K-BB% is in the 99th percentile across all of minor league baseball.
Gwinnett’s offense woke up a bit in the third inning, but it was really Justin Dean who did the work, with the help of some questionable defense, to bring in the Stripers only run. Dean hit a hot shot over to Bo Bichette at shortstop, which somehow got past Bichette event though it looked like he had a fairly clean play on the ball. Instead the ball skipped off of Bichette’s glove, and Dean never slowed down and was able to stretch the play into what was ruled a double. Honestly not sure how that wasn’t ruled an error, but in any case Dean got a great read on pitcher Trenton Wallace to steal third base, then scored on a Luke Williams sacrifice fly.
This was the only run of the game for Gwinnett, and overall for the team, and Drake Baldwin and Nacho Alvarez, it was a tough day at the plate. Baldwin in particular has struggled this series, as after being so dominant and so strikeout-averse for a good month there he has had issues making contact over the past few games. Baldwin struggled in his matchup with Wallace, a lefty with a low release that is difficult for left handed batters to pick up, and had three whiffs on Wallace’s slider including a first inning swinging strikeout with two runners on. Baldwin has had great results on secondary pitches this season but in his past three games has eight whiffs on sliders though six of those have come against low arm slot lefties. In the fourth inning matchup Baldwin got a better look at that slider and hit it over 100 mph, but it was a grounder right to the second baseman for an out. Baldwin also drew a walk in the sixth inning, then in his final plate appearance got just a bit under a cutter at the bottom of the zone and flew out to right center field. Baldwin has been hitting more fly balls to the pull side in recent weeks, and if Triple-A has gotten the same batch of low-drag, deader balls as we’ve seen at the big league level it could help explain why we haven’t seen quite as many scorched gappers lately. Baldwin’s big struggles this series have been against those left handed arms mentioned, which isn’t really a huge surprise given that Baldwin struggled with lefties last season and those guys are tough on even the best left-handed hitters.
Nacho Alvarez was one of those runners on base in the first inning, as he just waited out five straight sinkers and four of them missed the zone for him to draw a walk. He got his bat off of his shoulder in the third inning and popped up a slider on the inner half, his final matchup with Wallace. It was overall a bit of a rougher day than yesterday for Alvarez, who in the sixth inning got a good fastball to hit but was late on it, and even though he did hit it hard he didn’t get around on it and just hit it straight into the ground over to second base. He got caught watching a fastball middle-middle in the eighth inning for a strikeout. Alvarez just isn’t getting good results on the pull side, but where he has improved lately is both the rate and quality of contact up the middle. Over the past two weeks he has an average exit velocity of 90.7 mph on straightaway hits, and has been lifting the ball in that direction as well. Hopefully this is an indication of him getting more on time to pitches, especially considering seven of the 13 batted balls in that span have been off of fastballs.
Gonzalez came back out to face the nine hitter in the third inning, and despite jamming him with an inside fastball the batter was able to flare one the opposite way for a leadoff single. Parker Dunshee finished off the third inning to strand that runner, but got hit around in the fourth inning and allowed a run. While he only allowed one hard hit ball in the inning — a leadoff fly out — a medium-hit liner into the gap was just out of the reach of Justin Dean who saw the ball fall out of his glove after a great diving attempt. This led to a double, and Buffalo would bring the runner around to score. Tyler Matzek had a solid outing and forced a lot of ground ball contact, but he hasn’t been missing bats since returning to the Braves and after going 2 2⁄3 scoreless innings the final batter he faced chased him from the game with a two out single. This brought in Tommy Doyle, the final pitcher of the day, and ultimately the pitcher of record in the game. Bo Bichette hit a hard double off of Doyle that score the go ahead run, charged to Matzek, and Alan Roden would go deep on a hanging cutter to put the game out of reach for a struggling offense.
Swing and Misses
Domingo Gonzalez - 4
Tommy Doyle - 4
(63-72) Mississippi Braves 6, (65-69) Biloxi Shuckers 0
Box Score
Cody Milligan, CF: 2-3, 2B, RBI, .242/.306/.358
David McCabe, DH: 1-4, RBI, .132/.272/.202
Ian Mejia, SP: 6.1 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 3.47 ERA
The Mississippi offense has decided scoring runs are cool, and for the second straight day a big inning drove them to a win. Earlier this season Brandon Parker went on an extreme heater for a week, hitting five home runs in an eight game stretch for Mississippi that accounted for most of his six home runs on the season coming into the season. He then went on an awful stretch where he didn’t have a home run for 34 games and had an OPS of just .407, making him quite an unlikely hero to resurrect this Mississippi offense. Yet here we are, with Parker on another incredible streak having now hit home runs in three straight games. Shuckers starter Adam Seminaris didn’t have a fun time in the second inning, starting with a walk to Ethan Workinger and a sharp line out from Adam Zebrowski that would portend the coming avalanche. Bryson Horne snuck a hit through off of the glove of the diving second baseman and Keshawn Ogans turned on an inside slider for an RBI single, but following a Cade Bunnell strikeout Seminaris was in perfect position to escape with minimal damage. He had two outs and the nine hole hitter up, but Parker had different plans for the inning. Seminaris left an 89 mph fastball on the inner edge and failed to get it up on the zone, right in the wheelhouse for Parker to turn and crush a three-run home run into the trees in left field for a 4-0 M-Braves lead. The bleeding wouldn’t stop there though, as the second baseman booted an awkward hop on a Cal Conley ground ball. Cody Milligan stayed hot at the plate and gapped a 3-2 fastball for an RBI double, and David McCabe capped the inning and Seminaris’s day by ripping a base hit down the line to score the sixth run of the inning. Back to Milligan and staying hot, he is now on a six game hitting streak and over his past 17 has only struck out 15% of the time while posting a .322/.394/.441 (148 wRC+) slash line.
In addition to the offensive outburst the M-Braves got a brilliant final (?) start to the season from Ian Mejia, who went what was ultimately a complete game 6 1⁄3 scoreless innings. Mejia has been a fascinating player to watch develop this season, because he started so strong before really spending most of the season trying to find his identity. Mejia wasn’t landing his slider all that well this game and didn’t miss many bats, but his mix of pitches was able to keep Biloxi off balance and force a lot of weak contact. One of the prime developments for Mejia has been his velocity. He mostly sat 90-92 at the outset of the season, but has not only been sitting 91-94 for the second half of the season but in this game held that velocity deep into the game. While his command and ability to elevate has not been as consistent this year, if he can get used to these adjustments and get back to the 60 grade command he showed earlier in the year along with his improved changeup he could start getting more attention. His changeup is a pitch he locates much better now than a few months ago, and one he can go to as a consistent weapon against left-handed batters, and he utilized it well this game to get swing-and-miss. Later in the game though his command did start to falter as he seemed to get tired, but all in all Mejia has made noticeable improvements on his two main weaknesses — lack of a consistent third pitch and below average velocity — and that sets him up better in the long term even if the consistency of his slider and his command has been a bit less than ideal lately. Mejia also seems to be toying with a cut fastball for much of the season, and added depth to the arsenal of a player with no stand out pitch is certainly a benefit. The question now is whether Mejia or yesterday’s starter Lucas Braun gets the bump to Triple-A next week. With the Stripers utilizing a bullpen game for Saturday there is a wide open slot in the rotation that either would be in line to fill and I would expect one of the two to not quite be done yet.
Swing and Misses
Ian Mejia - 8
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