<img alt="Arizona Diamondbacks v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gQ47JS5mFRU1Pwynr7E4zYOWpTc=/54x0:3627x2382/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/74005667/2142095103.0.jpg">
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Strider’s 5 1⁄3 hitless innings highlighted a busy day on the farm For the first time all season we have all four minor league affiliates in action on the Atlanta Braves farm system, and we had plenty to be excited about on Friday night. Three of the four affiliates won, including a walk off in Gwinnett and an impressive showing from some young hitters down in Augusta.
(3-4) Gwinnett Stripers 2, (2-5) Nashville Sounds 1 F/11
Box Score
Statcast
Alex Verdugo, RF: 0-2
Sean Murphy, C: 0-3
Spencer Strider, SP: 5.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 1.08 ERA
Domingo Gonzalez, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 10.13 ERA
In hopefully the last the Stripers will ever see of him, Spencer Strider was masterful in their tight win over the Sounds. You can hardly even tell Strider is coming off of injury, as he had every part of his arsenal working and didn’t allow a hit to any of the 17 batters he faced. It’s not even fair to have him pitching at this level really — his opponents whiffed on 9 of the 14 swings they took at his secondary pitches — and Strider recorded two strikeouts on fastballs, four on sliders, and two on changeups. Really there isn’t much that even needs to be said here get this man to Atlanta ASAP.
For all that Strider did, neither side had any good offense to show through the first nine innings of this game. The only sniff of production came in the second inning, started when Luke Waddell slapped one through the left side of the infield for a one-out single. Luke Williams managed to follow him up by floating a liner right through the hole on the next pitch, and the Stripers had a bit of business brewing with the bottom of the order up to bat. Then, an errant pitch clipped Charles Leblanc’s elbow, and the bases were loaded for Jake Marisnick to make his splash in the game. Marisnick looped one directly to the second baseman, who took the ball on a short hop and turned a 4-3 double play to end the lone threat in regulation baseball. Sean Murphy, playing in back-to-back games, struggled at the plate with a couple of weakly hit balls in his first two plate appearances before getting under one in the sixth inning and flying out to end his day.
Finally something happened in extra innings, and that something was an Enoli Paredes balk that set up the Sounds with a chance to take the lead on a Jorge Alfaro sacrifice fly. Gwinnett answered with a run in the bottom of the 10th inning, and this game was dragged on until the 11th. Paredes gave up a sharp single into left field to lead off, but Marisnick gathered the ball quickly to prevent a run from scoring and Paredes clutched up. He struck out the next two batters before getting a soft roller over to second to close out a scoreless inning. Nashville then, fairly literally, threw the game away. Charles Leblanc gave Sounds reliever Blake Holub exactly what he wanted: a ground out over to third base that didn’t allow Luke Williams to advance from second. With Marisnick now up Holub spun to make a pickoff throw at second base and launched it into center field allowing Williams to come in and score easily to walk the game off.
Swing and Misses
Spencer Strider - 14
Enoli Paredes - 4
Domingo Gonzalez - 1
(0-1) Columbus Clingstones 3, (1-0) Montgomery Biscuits 5
Box Score
Cal Conley, SS: 1-4, BB
David McCabe, 3B: 1-3, HR, BB
Drue Hackenberg, SP: 2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 18.00 ERA
Rolddy Munoz, RP: 0.2 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 1 K, 13.50 ERA
The first ever Columbus Clingstones game is in the books, and of course they were the ones who cost the Atlanta system an organizational sweep. The Clingstones fell behind by a big margin early, and despite some offensive action to answer the Biscuits were never able to crawl back and get even in the game. Drue Hackenberg just didn’t have the best game out there, though it doesn’t all come back onto him. Geraldo Quintero lost a ball in the lights in the second inning, allowing the pop up to fall for a triple, and at least one of Montgomery’s runs in the three-run second inning scored as a result of that. Outside of that taste of bad luck Hackenberg was, as we often saw last season, a mix of both his best and worst self. The positives for Hackenberg throughout the game were the quality of his fastball mix. His cutter is a bit sharper than last season and he commanded it on the glove side much better than he did while developing it, making it a central piece to his approach in this game. His four-seam fastball command was also as good as I’ve seen from him as he did a solid job of putting the ball on the top edge of the zone, but it was his secondaries that gave him trouble. He had no feel for locating either his curveball or changeup throughout his outing, and with neither providing any impact the Biscuits were able to sit on and time up his two fastballs. Hackenberg didn’t miss many bats as a result and struggled to finish out some of his at bats, with the Biscuits getting a couple of RBI hits and two walks in two strike counts. We’re only talking one start here, but it was the same Hackenberg we saw all of last year. He is rarely awful — always at least a couple of his pitches were working well — but it seems like he struggles to go out there and consistently locate more than two pitches in any given start and thus getting truly great games out of him is also uncommon.
On the other side of the coin this is the least interesting offense in the system, though thankfully we got some impact here from the one player that has some real major league starting potential. David McCabe didn’t get the best swing on the ball in the sixth inning, but his raw strength was enough for him to line the ball the opposite way and clear the left field wall for a leadoff home run. McCabe looked much more comfortable this game at the plate than he did at any point last season, showing off the feel for the strike zone that helped him succeed at the lower levels. McCabe has to do a lot to answer the concerns over his contact skill and bat speed though, and in my opinion his physical shape is not helping him. I don’t love to harp on guys putting on weight, but in McCabe’s case he was already fringy athletically to stick at the third base position. He looks to be a touch heavier and slower yet again this season, and at this pace he’s pretty easily going to be pushed off of the position. McCabe has the offensive ceiling to be a first baseman or designated hitter, but he’s going to need to maximize that talent if and when he moves off of third base as that will significantly stress the value of his hit tool.
James McCann had a great day at the plate for Columbus with two doubles and a walk, and I sure would hope a guy with 3300 major league plate appearances can hit Double-A pitching. His performance kept Columbus in the game early when one of his doubles scored two runs in the third inning to cut the early Montgomery lead in half. After that McCabe home run though Mississippi didn’t do a whole lot at the plate, and Rolddy Munoz was absolutely awful in the eighth inning in relief. Munoz ended 2024 on a terrific run with 28 strikeouts to seven walks and a 1.37 ERA over his final 15 appearances. Unfortunately he couldn’t carry that momentum over to his first appearance of 2025, walking four consecutive batters and only landing 10 of his 28 pitches for strikes. This is just who Munoz is, he’s going to have games and even weeks at a time where he absolutely has no idea where the ball is going, but if he can have more of those stretches like the end of 2024 than he does stretches like last night then he’s going to end up having some major league success. His slider is just too good to not get outs as long as he is around the zone.
Swing and Misses
Landon Harper - 9
Drue Hackenberg - 6
(1-0) Rome Emperors 6, (0-1) Winston-Salem Dash 2
Box Score
EJ Exposito, 3B, 1-3, HR, BB
Patrick Clohisy, RF: 3-4, RBI
JR Ritchie, SP: 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 4.50 ERA
Cory Wall, RP: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 0.00 ERA
There has been nothing but excitement surrounding JR Ritchie this offseason, but unfortunately it was not the season debut anyone had hoped for as he just was not sharp with his pitches throughout the game. Ritchie couldn’t locate his slider at all, and was not getting the swing-and-miss performance we became accustomed to seeing last season. Just how out of character was this start for Ritchie? This was the first time in his professional career he had more walks than strikeouts in a game, and he had gone 18 consecutive outings with more strikeouts than walks dating back to his second game with Augusta in hsi draft season. This is also only the second time in that span of 18 games that Ritchie has walked three batters. With that in mind we can simply assume a fluke, and take confidence in Ritchie’s improved fastball velocity and changeup this season. Even with those struggles, outside of the first couple of batters of the game he wasn’t really making his mistakes over the plate. The third batter of the game notched a two run home run and the next hit a slider for a double, but after that the Dash weren’t able to get hard contact off of anything Ritchie threw. For arguably his worst game as a professional, Ritchie managed to allow only three hits and two runs across four innings.
With six players in their second stint at High-A it should be no stretch to expect Rome to have a good offense this season, and if opening day is any indication the South Atlantic League could be in a bit of trouble in the first half. Bryson Horne’s second inning two-run shot answered Winston-Salem’s early runs, then the Dash gave Rome a bit of help to take the lead in the third. A hit batter and an unfortunate bounce off of the third base bag put two runners on, and the Emperors were able to score both. The lone clean hit in the inning was a blooper from Patrick Clohisy that just pinged off of the shortstop’s glove after a fantastic effort in shallow center field, that play scoring EJ Exposito for the fourth Rome run. First half Exposito may be the greatest player in Rome history, as he went ahead an tacked on a run with an opposite field home run in the seventh inning. We also got to see the Rome debut of Minor League Rule 5 pick Lizandro Espinoza, who drew a walk and had an RBI on a shallow fly ball to right field. It’s early so I’m going to give Espinoza time, and obviously the Minor League Rule 5 draft isn’t exactly a haven of elite talent, but I’m not sure I see exactly what compelled the Braves to pick him up. There’s some defensive versatility that has value as an organizational piece, but I see a player with a long swing that will give him contact issues, yet he still doesn’t hit the ball hard and doesn’t have the speed to be a force on the basepaths. It’s just a weird pickup but it’s not as if he was expensive so they have some nice infield depth now I guess.
Swing and Misses
Cory Wall - 5
JR Ritchie - 3
Tyler LaPorte - 2
(1-0) Augusta GreenJackets 12, (0-1) Columbia Fireflies 7
Box Score
John Gil, SS: 1-5, BB, 2 SB
Eric Hartman, LF: 2-4, HR, BB, 2 RBI
Owen Carey, DH: 2-5, 2 2B, 3 RBI
Owen Hackman, SP: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 13.50 ERA
Jacob Gomez, RP: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 0.00 ERA
Augusta hasn’t been the home for big offensive performance over the past few seasons, but they opened the season with a barn-burner behind their young and talented offense. On the other end, however, Owen Hackman struggled allowing five runs over 2 2⁄3 innings though he looked better than what that final line might indicate. Hackman never really had a quiet inning, but the first was the only one where he really seemed to struggle with his command. He wasn’t elevating his fastball like he needs to in order to be successful, and Columbia was able to get solid contact and bring home a run. Hackman started out in trouble in the second inning before settling in nicely, but some poor luck extended the inning. John Gil made a youthful error, not properly setting his feet and sailing a throw to first on a grounder that should have ended the inning, bringing home a run and extending Hackman’s outing. Still, Hackman made great pitches with his fastball over his final two innings of work, even if in the third the Fireflies made a few good swings and beat some well-located pitches. Hackman’s biggest problem throughout the game was the location and shape of his slider, a development we were expecting him to need quite a bit of progress on this season. He’s showing a bit more downward shape on the pitch, a positive development that allowed it to get whiffs in this game, but also tended to leave it up in the zone or have the shape get slurvy, all of which the Columbia lineup took advantage of consistently. That pitch will be a work in progress for Hackman and we obviously never want to make judgement off of just a player’s first outing, other than to say at its best his slider is improved over last season and gives him a real average-quality pitch to pair with that nasty fastball.
The GreenJackets had their struggles on defense — Gil had another ball take an awkward hop that he wasn’t able to field cleanly — but Columbia took it to another level with their six errors leading to six unearned runs for the GreenJackets. Yet there were plenty of standout offensive performances for Augusta. The core duo was the 2024 draftees Eric Hartman and Owen Carey in the 4th and 5th spot who went off for a combined four hits, three of those for extra bases, and five RBI. Both were later round picks for a reason, with holes in their swings and approaches that could prove troublesome moving forward, but the talent from these two was obvious from the outset. Carey had two doubles in this game, showing off the bat speed to turn on inside fastball and recording two doubles including a three-run double in Augusta’s three-run fourth inning that got them back into the game at 6-5. Then there was Hartman, who even with room in his frame to add strength already showed off above average power potential. Hartman broke the game open in the seventh inning, turning on a high fastball on the inner half and obliterating a no-doubt home run to right field to make it 11-7. The top six of this lineup is an incredible collection of young players with high ceilings, the best pure talent we’ve seen in a Braves minor league lineup in years, and all found ways to impress. One notable change from the one player who didn’t reach base is Luis Guanipa’s batting stance. The Braves have opened up his front side, likely in an effort to force him to move towards the pitcher rather than bailing away from home plate, and it’s far too early to see exactly what effect that will have. The back side of Guanipa’s swing did look much better than last season, but he is still falling away from home plate and is struggling to make consistent contact on anything out away from him as a result.
Two other pitchers from this game are also on my watch list for the season, starting with Hackman’s replacement Anthony Garcia. Garcia only has 79 affiliated innings to his name, and at age 23 you would love to see him not spend too much time in Augusta this season, but there are traits there to keep an eye on. He can spin that sweeping slider well, utilizing that as the primary weapon for his nine whiffs in this game, and he pairs it with a solid low-90’s sinker. Then there is Jacob Gomez, who closed out the game by continuing a tradition for the Braves seeking out low-release, high carry relief pitchers. Gomez gets impressively efficient vertical movement on a pitch given how side-arm his delivery is, and he’s going to make a fool out of Single-A hitters with his fastball even if he struggles to get it in the low 90’s. Adding velocity and trying to find a breaking ball he can spin will be important to his success at higher levels, but he will be one of the intriguing relief arms to watch as he will likely put up absurd strikeout rates at least through the two A-levels. So far in his career Gomez has struck out 24 of the 55 batters he has faced.
Swing and Misses
Owen Hackman - 15
Anthony Garcia - 9
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Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Strider’s 5 1⁄3 hitless innings highlighted a busy day on the farm For the first time all season we have all four minor league affiliates in action on the Atlanta Braves farm system, and we had plenty to be excited about on Friday night. Three of the four affiliates won, including a walk off in Gwinnett and an impressive showing from some young hitters down in Augusta.
(3-4) Gwinnett Stripers 2, (2-5) Nashville Sounds 1 F/11
Box Score
Statcast
Alex Verdugo, RF: 0-2
Sean Murphy, C: 0-3
Spencer Strider, SP: 5.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 1.08 ERA
Domingo Gonzalez, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 10.13 ERA
In hopefully the last the Stripers will ever see of him, Spencer Strider was masterful in their tight win over the Sounds. You can hardly even tell Strider is coming off of injury, as he had every part of his arsenal working and didn’t allow a hit to any of the 17 batters he faced. It’s not even fair to have him pitching at this level really — his opponents whiffed on 9 of the 14 swings they took at his secondary pitches — and Strider recorded two strikeouts on fastballs, four on sliders, and two on changeups. Really there isn’t much that even needs to be said here get this man to Atlanta ASAP.
For all that Strider did, neither side had any good offense to show through the first nine innings of this game. The only sniff of production came in the second inning, started when Luke Waddell slapped one through the left side of the infield for a one-out single. Luke Williams managed to follow him up by floating a liner right through the hole on the next pitch, and the Stripers had a bit of business brewing with the bottom of the order up to bat. Then, an errant pitch clipped Charles Leblanc’s elbow, and the bases were loaded for Jake Marisnick to make his splash in the game. Marisnick looped one directly to the second baseman, who took the ball on a short hop and turned a 4-3 double play to end the lone threat in regulation baseball. Sean Murphy, playing in back-to-back games, struggled at the plate with a couple of weakly hit balls in his first two plate appearances before getting under one in the sixth inning and flying out to end his day.
Finally something happened in extra innings, and that something was an Enoli Paredes balk that set up the Sounds with a chance to take the lead on a Jorge Alfaro sacrifice fly. Gwinnett answered with a run in the bottom of the 10th inning, and this game was dragged on until the 11th. Paredes gave up a sharp single into left field to lead off, but Marisnick gathered the ball quickly to prevent a run from scoring and Paredes clutched up. He struck out the next two batters before getting a soft roller over to second to close out a scoreless inning. Nashville then, fairly literally, threw the game away. Charles Leblanc gave Sounds reliever Blake Holub exactly what he wanted: a ground out over to third base that didn’t allow Luke Williams to advance from second. With Marisnick now up Holub spun to make a pickoff throw at second base and launched it into center field allowing Williams to come in and score easily to walk the game off.
Swing and Misses
Spencer Strider - 14
Enoli Paredes - 4
Domingo Gonzalez - 1
(0-1) Columbus Clingstones 3, (1-0) Montgomery Biscuits 5
Box Score
Cal Conley, SS: 1-4, BB
David McCabe, 3B: 1-3, HR, BB
Drue Hackenberg, SP: 2 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 18.00 ERA
Rolddy Munoz, RP: 0.2 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 1 K, 13.50 ERA
The first ever Columbus Clingstones game is in the books, and of course they were the ones who cost the Atlanta system an organizational sweep. The Clingstones fell behind by a big margin early, and despite some offensive action to answer the Biscuits were never able to crawl back and get even in the game. Drue Hackenberg just didn’t have the best game out there, though it doesn’t all come back onto him. Geraldo Quintero lost a ball in the lights in the second inning, allowing the pop up to fall for a triple, and at least one of Montgomery’s runs in the three-run second inning scored as a result of that. Outside of that taste of bad luck Hackenberg was, as we often saw last season, a mix of both his best and worst self. The positives for Hackenberg throughout the game were the quality of his fastball mix. His cutter is a bit sharper than last season and he commanded it on the glove side much better than he did while developing it, making it a central piece to his approach in this game. His four-seam fastball command was also as good as I’ve seen from him as he did a solid job of putting the ball on the top edge of the zone, but it was his secondaries that gave him trouble. He had no feel for locating either his curveball or changeup throughout his outing, and with neither providing any impact the Biscuits were able to sit on and time up his two fastballs. Hackenberg didn’t miss many bats as a result and struggled to finish out some of his at bats, with the Biscuits getting a couple of RBI hits and two walks in two strike counts. We’re only talking one start here, but it was the same Hackenberg we saw all of last year. He is rarely awful — always at least a couple of his pitches were working well — but it seems like he struggles to go out there and consistently locate more than two pitches in any given start and thus getting truly great games out of him is also uncommon.
On the other side of the coin this is the least interesting offense in the system, though thankfully we got some impact here from the one player that has some real major league starting potential. David McCabe didn’t get the best swing on the ball in the sixth inning, but his raw strength was enough for him to line the ball the opposite way and clear the left field wall for a leadoff home run. McCabe looked much more comfortable this game at the plate than he did at any point last season, showing off the feel for the strike zone that helped him succeed at the lower levels. McCabe has to do a lot to answer the concerns over his contact skill and bat speed though, and in my opinion his physical shape is not helping him. I don’t love to harp on guys putting on weight, but in McCabe’s case he was already fringy athletically to stick at the third base position. He looks to be a touch heavier and slower yet again this season, and at this pace he’s pretty easily going to be pushed off of the position. McCabe has the offensive ceiling to be a first baseman or designated hitter, but he’s going to need to maximize that talent if and when he moves off of third base as that will significantly stress the value of his hit tool.
James McCann had a great day at the plate for Columbus with two doubles and a walk, and I sure would hope a guy with 3300 major league plate appearances can hit Double-A pitching. His performance kept Columbus in the game early when one of his doubles scored two runs in the third inning to cut the early Montgomery lead in half. After that McCabe home run though Mississippi didn’t do a whole lot at the plate, and Rolddy Munoz was absolutely awful in the eighth inning in relief. Munoz ended 2024 on a terrific run with 28 strikeouts to seven walks and a 1.37 ERA over his final 15 appearances. Unfortunately he couldn’t carry that momentum over to his first appearance of 2025, walking four consecutive batters and only landing 10 of his 28 pitches for strikes. This is just who Munoz is, he’s going to have games and even weeks at a time where he absolutely has no idea where the ball is going, but if he can have more of those stretches like the end of 2024 than he does stretches like last night then he’s going to end up having some major league success. His slider is just too good to not get outs as long as he is around the zone.
Swing and Misses
Landon Harper - 9
Drue Hackenberg - 6
(1-0) Rome Emperors 6, (0-1) Winston-Salem Dash 2
Box Score
EJ Exposito, 3B, 1-3, HR, BB
Patrick Clohisy, RF: 3-4, RBI
JR Ritchie, SP: 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 4.50 ERA
Cory Wall, RP: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 0.00 ERA
There has been nothing but excitement surrounding JR Ritchie this offseason, but unfortunately it was not the season debut anyone had hoped for as he just was not sharp with his pitches throughout the game. Ritchie couldn’t locate his slider at all, and was not getting the swing-and-miss performance we became accustomed to seeing last season. Just how out of character was this start for Ritchie? This was the first time in his professional career he had more walks than strikeouts in a game, and he had gone 18 consecutive outings with more strikeouts than walks dating back to his second game with Augusta in hsi draft season. This is also only the second time in that span of 18 games that Ritchie has walked three batters. With that in mind we can simply assume a fluke, and take confidence in Ritchie’s improved fastball velocity and changeup this season. Even with those struggles, outside of the first couple of batters of the game he wasn’t really making his mistakes over the plate. The third batter of the game notched a two run home run and the next hit a slider for a double, but after that the Dash weren’t able to get hard contact off of anything Ritchie threw. For arguably his worst game as a professional, Ritchie managed to allow only three hits and two runs across four innings.
With six players in their second stint at High-A it should be no stretch to expect Rome to have a good offense this season, and if opening day is any indication the South Atlantic League could be in a bit of trouble in the first half. Bryson Horne’s second inning two-run shot answered Winston-Salem’s early runs, then the Dash gave Rome a bit of help to take the lead in the third. A hit batter and an unfortunate bounce off of the third base bag put two runners on, and the Emperors were able to score both. The lone clean hit in the inning was a blooper from Patrick Clohisy that just pinged off of the shortstop’s glove after a fantastic effort in shallow center field, that play scoring EJ Exposito for the fourth Rome run. First half Exposito may be the greatest player in Rome history, as he went ahead an tacked on a run with an opposite field home run in the seventh inning. We also got to see the Rome debut of Minor League Rule 5 pick Lizandro Espinoza, who drew a walk and had an RBI on a shallow fly ball to right field. It’s early so I’m going to give Espinoza time, and obviously the Minor League Rule 5 draft isn’t exactly a haven of elite talent, but I’m not sure I see exactly what compelled the Braves to pick him up. There’s some defensive versatility that has value as an organizational piece, but I see a player with a long swing that will give him contact issues, yet he still doesn’t hit the ball hard and doesn’t have the speed to be a force on the basepaths. It’s just a weird pickup but it’s not as if he was expensive so they have some nice infield depth now I guess.
Swing and Misses
Cory Wall - 5
JR Ritchie - 3
Tyler LaPorte - 2
(1-0) Augusta GreenJackets 12, (0-1) Columbia Fireflies 7
Box Score
John Gil, SS: 1-5, BB, 2 SB
Eric Hartman, LF: 2-4, HR, BB, 2 RBI
Owen Carey, DH: 2-5, 2 2B, 3 RBI
Owen Hackman, SP: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 13.50 ERA
Jacob Gomez, RP: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 0.00 ERA
Augusta hasn’t been the home for big offensive performance over the past few seasons, but they opened the season with a barn-burner behind their young and talented offense. On the other end, however, Owen Hackman struggled allowing five runs over 2 2⁄3 innings though he looked better than what that final line might indicate. Hackman never really had a quiet inning, but the first was the only one where he really seemed to struggle with his command. He wasn’t elevating his fastball like he needs to in order to be successful, and Columbia was able to get solid contact and bring home a run. Hackman started out in trouble in the second inning before settling in nicely, but some poor luck extended the inning. John Gil made a youthful error, not properly setting his feet and sailing a throw to first on a grounder that should have ended the inning, bringing home a run and extending Hackman’s outing. Still, Hackman made great pitches with his fastball over his final two innings of work, even if in the third the Fireflies made a few good swings and beat some well-located pitches. Hackman’s biggest problem throughout the game was the location and shape of his slider, a development we were expecting him to need quite a bit of progress on this season. He’s showing a bit more downward shape on the pitch, a positive development that allowed it to get whiffs in this game, but also tended to leave it up in the zone or have the shape get slurvy, all of which the Columbia lineup took advantage of consistently. That pitch will be a work in progress for Hackman and we obviously never want to make judgement off of just a player’s first outing, other than to say at its best his slider is improved over last season and gives him a real average-quality pitch to pair with that nasty fastball.
The GreenJackets had their struggles on defense — Gil had another ball take an awkward hop that he wasn’t able to field cleanly — but Columbia took it to another level with their six errors leading to six unearned runs for the GreenJackets. Yet there were plenty of standout offensive performances for Augusta. The core duo was the 2024 draftees Eric Hartman and Owen Carey in the 4th and 5th spot who went off for a combined four hits, three of those for extra bases, and five RBI. Both were later round picks for a reason, with holes in their swings and approaches that could prove troublesome moving forward, but the talent from these two was obvious from the outset. Carey had two doubles in this game, showing off the bat speed to turn on inside fastball and recording two doubles including a three-run double in Augusta’s three-run fourth inning that got them back into the game at 6-5. Then there was Hartman, who even with room in his frame to add strength already showed off above average power potential. Hartman broke the game open in the seventh inning, turning on a high fastball on the inner half and obliterating a no-doubt home run to right field to make it 11-7. The top six of this lineup is an incredible collection of young players with high ceilings, the best pure talent we’ve seen in a Braves minor league lineup in years, and all found ways to impress. One notable change from the one player who didn’t reach base is Luis Guanipa’s batting stance. The Braves have opened up his front side, likely in an effort to force him to move towards the pitcher rather than bailing away from home plate, and it’s far too early to see exactly what effect that will have. The back side of Guanipa’s swing did look much better than last season, but he is still falling away from home plate and is struggling to make consistent contact on anything out away from him as a result.
Two other pitchers from this game are also on my watch list for the season, starting with Hackman’s replacement Anthony Garcia. Garcia only has 79 affiliated innings to his name, and at age 23 you would love to see him not spend too much time in Augusta this season, but there are traits there to keep an eye on. He can spin that sweeping slider well, utilizing that as the primary weapon for his nine whiffs in this game, and he pairs it with a solid low-90’s sinker. Then there is Jacob Gomez, who closed out the game by continuing a tradition for the Braves seeking out low-release, high carry relief pitchers. Gomez gets impressively efficient vertical movement on a pitch given how side-arm his delivery is, and he’s going to make a fool out of Single-A hitters with his fastball even if he struggles to get it in the low 90’s. Adding velocity and trying to find a breaking ball he can spin will be important to his success at higher levels, but he will be one of the intriguing relief arms to watch as he will likely put up absurd strikeout rates at least through the two A-levels. So far in his career Gomez has struck out 24 of the 55 batters he has faced.
Swing and Misses
Owen Hackman - 15
Anthony Garcia - 9
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