<img alt="Columbus Clingstones photo day" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XRP93BFOjqWiUt6_1j6MF_0OVFc=/0x171:2153x1606/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/74021025/2207553758.0.jpg">
Photo by Paul Abell/Minor League Baseball via Getty Images
Quintero led Columbus to another win on Saturday night. With Didier Fuentes headlining the prospects in action on Saturday night, the Atlanta Braves system was able to get three wins with Fuentes improving over his opening start on the season. The offenses are starting to emerge a bit with three teams scoring six or more runs.
(6-6) Gwinnett Stripers 6, (5-8) Norfolk Tides 1
Box Score
Statcast
Alex Verdugo, RF: 1-4, .150/.190/.350
Luke Waddell, SS: 1-3, 2B, BB, 2 RBI, .304/.400/.391
Nathan Wiles, SP: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 0.00 ERA
Domingo Gonzalez, RP: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 5.06 ERA
(6-7) Gwinnett Stripers 2, (6-8) Norfolk Tides 6
Box Score
Statcast
Alex Verdugo, DH: 0-4, .150/.190/.350
Garrett Cooper, 1B: 2-3, HR, BB, .243/.417/.351
Chad Kuhl, SP: 4 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 9.95 ERA
Enoli Paredes, RP: 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 1.35 ERA
Gwinnett’s played a good series against the Norfolk Tides, and by splitting their Saturday double header they head into Sunday with a chance to take a second straight series win. Their offensive production in game one heavily centered around Luke Waddell, whose third inning doubles into the left field gap broke the seal by driving in the game’s first two runs. Waddell has played impressively for Gwinnett with a .400 on base percentage early this season, and seems to have made significant adjustment at the plate to try to have more impact with his contact. Waddell’s power is still limited, with his top end exit velocities trailing well behind what you would expect to see from major league hitters, but he has made a concerted effort this season to hit the ball with more authority. He has increased his average exit velocity from 86.5 mph in 2024 to 90.7 mph in 2025, with an increase in hard-hit rate from 25.4% to 35.3%, though this has come with an increase in whiffs from 16.2% to 21.3%. This double header also represented the first real contributions we’ve gotten from Garrett Cooper this season as he had multiple hits and an extra base hit in each game. He followed Waddell up with a base hit for the third run of the inning in the third inning, then in the seventh drove in Waddell again with an opposite field double off of the wall.
In game two Cooper delivered what would be a rare dose of offense for the game, launching a fifth inning, 109 mph home run that tied the game at 2-2. Gwinnett hung in to this game for awhile, but fell apart late as the Tides were able to pile on the runs in their final two offensive innings. The Stripers weren’t using the A squad on the pitching end, but got an interesting start out of Nathan Wiles in game one. Wiles only allowed one hit and no runs over four innings, seeing success with all four of his pitches, but he had no feel for landing the ball in the strike zone this game. Barely half of his pitches were strikes and only 1⁄3 were in the strike zone, but Wiles mix of pitches makes him an interesting player that could end up in the spot starter shuffle throughout the year. Wiles stagnated with the Rays at Triple-A as he has lacked a go-to secondary offering at the higher level, but he has displayed a tweaked changeup this spring that in small samples has been successful. If he can utilize this more effectively as his best secondary offering that could help him get over the hump to being a back-end starter, where despite his performance on Saturday he does have a history of throwing strikes.
Swing and Misses
Nathan Wiles - 12
Chad Kuhl - 10
Wander Suero - 6
Enoli Paredes - 2
Domingo Gonzalez - 2
(4-3) Columbus Clingstones 8, (1-7) Biloxi Shuckers 3
Box Score
Carlos Rodriguez, CF: 2-4, 2B, BB, .414/.486/.448
Geraldo Quintero, LF: 1-3, HR, BB, 5 RBI, .143/.240/.429
Cal Conley, SS: 1-4, BB, RBI, .258/.343/.258
Ian Mejia, SP: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 6.00 ERA
Elison Joseph, RP: 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 5.40 ERA
Columbus stormed out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning, riding that wave to their fourth win in their past five games to get above .500. Shuckers starter Nate Peterson was all over the place in this game, but especially in the first inning, as he walked four of the first five Clingstones hitters to create danger for himself. However, a Jason Delay double play gave Peterson a chance to escape the inning unscathed. Geraldo Quintero was determined not to let him get off so easily though, and when Peterson got behind 2-0 he was sitting dead red. Quintero got a fastball up in the zone and jumped all over it, crushing the grand slam that would define this game. It was the only hit Columbus would get against Peterson, but it made all the difference on the scoreboard. Outside of being able to draw walks — Columbus is the Southern League leader in walks, and has by far the lowest strikeout rate — the Clingstones offense really has only had two standout performers this season. With David McCabe sitting Carlos Rodriguez was the man with by far the most consistent numbers this year, and once again he set the table for this Clingstones lineup. Rodriguez has walked five times and has 12 hits in seven games, all while striking out only twice this season. His ability to get on base has been the driver to this offense, but his lack of impact has been obvious early in the season. It will be interesting to see if Rodriguez is treated similarly to Waddell and told to aim for more impact with the bat. Similarly to Waddell, Rodriguez’s defensive versatility, advanced approach, and ability to make consistent contact do make him interesting, but without any power to speak of it’s hard to see the Braves fitting him into a bench role in the future given their propensity to seek power.
It was a tough day out there for Ian Mejia, despite him mostly managing to keep the damage in check and cover five innings. While Mejia was in the strike zone he wasn’t making quality pitches, leaning heavily on his slider and changeup but not showing the ability to get those pitches on the edge of the zone. He was consistently missing up in the zone with both of those pitches, and he might have been lucky to be facing a team that’s struggling so much offensively otherwise it could have been a much uglier result. Mejia is able to force swing and miss with his slider when he is burying it below the zone, but he just did not do that near enough in this outing. The star of the game on the mound was Elison Joseph, who in the eighth inning got the ball with one out in the inning and the tying run at the plate in a two run game. Joseph had a better-than-usual feel for locating his slider, and he showed just how dangerous of a reliever he is when he is throwing strikes. Joseph carved up Biloxi for 1 2⁄3 innings, striking out four of the seven batters he faced with the only hit he allowed being a slow roller that hit the third base bag. Even his walk wasn’t a terrible at bat for him, as he made competitive pitches with the slider and the batter was able to make better takes. Joseph finished off his outing in impressive fashion, with two fantastic sliders getting two swinging strikeouts to close out his first save of the season.
Swing and Misses
Jake McSteen - 5
Elison Joseph - 5
Ian Mejia - 5
(4-4) Rome Emperors 4, (4-4) Bowling Green Hot Rods 3
Box Score
Patrick Clohisy, RF: 1-3, HR, 2 BB, 2 RBI, .308/.406/.462
Ambioris Tavarez, SS: 2-5, .323/.400/.484
Didier Fuentes, SP: 6 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 7.88 ERA
The top of this Emperors lineup from this game have been carrying the team through the first week of the season, and the addition of Justin Janas over the past four games has been tremendous. Janas has reached base multiple times in all four games, accounting for seven runs on his own. Janas kept it going with two more hits in this game, but it was power that made the difference for this win. First was Patrick Clohisy, who for the first time in his career went deep when a slider was hung on the inside corner and up a bit in the fourth inning. Clohisy isn’t much of a power hitter, but when you come inside on him he has the bat speed to turn on pitches and finds the barrel frequently. So far this season he has as many walks as strikeouts though this was just his second extra base hit. In the eighth inning Lizandro Espinoza ran into a home run of his own, and hopefully this will help to get him rolling on the season. So far he’s been a bit of a mess at the top of the lineup with a lot of strikeouts and little solid contact to show for it, and outside of the two double game on April 5th he hasn’t really done anything to contribute for Rome. This series in particular he has hit safely in three straight games, but has nine strikeouts and hasn’t drawn a walk since opening day. In the ninth inning the Emperors emulated the strategy the Clingstones showed in their first inning and just waited out reliever Jack Snyder. Snyder walked four Rome Emperors, his final one to Clohisy forcing home the go ahead and ultimately winning run in the game.
Didier Fuentes got the ball for his second start of the year, and despite it not living up to some of the absurd outings he posted at the end of the season he was much more in line with what we were expecting to see this season. Fuentes sat in the mid-90’s with his fastball and located it well, getting his best results with this pitch compared to his other two and getting the Hot Rods to swing through the pitch quite often. Where Fuentes just hasn’t quite dialed it in is with his slider, as he has been wild with his slider this season. Fuentes made numerous mistakes both in and out of the zone with his slider, and though he had great results when he did locate it too often he was getting in bad counts or giving up solid contact with his slider. Fuentes is also starting to mix in that splitter more often, though his command of the pitch is still rudimentary. Fuentes really settled into this game in the middle innings and showed his best slider command, but early and late the Hot Rods were able to hurt Fuentes and take advantage of Fuentes’s tendency to really just lay pitches in the zone when he is struggling to command the edges. This approach worked for Fuentes down in Single-A, but at High-A and above he’s going to have to battle more to stick to his command approach rather than relying on trying to use his velocity and movement abilities to get strikes in the middle of the zone.
Swing and Misses
Didier Fuentes - 11
Rob Griswold - 2
(4-4) Augusta GreenJackets 7, (5-3) Hickory Crawdads 8
Box Score
Colby Jones, 2B: 1-3, 2 BB, .280/.400/.360
Eric Hartman, LF: 1-3, BB, 2 RBI, .259/.394/.519
Rayven Antonio, SP: 4 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 6.75 ERA
Logan Samuels, RP: 2.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 1.17 ERA
Sometimes it’s just better to let the other team do the work for you, and Augusta did just that as they had only one extra base hit but rolled up seven total runs thanks to drawing 11 walks in the game. Seven of those went to the trio of Colby Jones, Carlos Monteverde, and Luis Sanchez in the 5th through 7th spots in the lineup, and having that on-base threat consecutively in the lineup proved to be exactly what the doctor ordered. The one extra base hit — Mac Gusette’s second inning double — drove in Monteverde, and put Sanchez in position to score on a ground out. Four walks and a hit batter led to a three-run ninth inning, and with the bases loaded, Augusta trailing by one, and two down in the ninth inning, Nick Montgomery cranked one to the right center field gap. Unfortunately the ball died at the track, with a great running catch from the center fielder robbing Montgomery of an extra base hit and three RBI.
Rayven Antonio struggled to get it done for Augusta, especially in the first inning, but he felt like he was just a tick away from a very good game. True, his command of even his fastball wasn’t good, but with the life his fastball has in the zone he was able to work ahead of hitters frequently. Unfortunately he just didn’t have a great feel for locating his slider, and would either miss with the pitch or leave it over the plate to get hit hard. This was especially apparent on back-to-back two strike doubles in the three-run first inning, and though he settled down and made fewer mistakes as the game went on he still had trouble finishing at bats at times throughout the outing. For Logan Samuels it was another solid outing where he mixed his pitches well and kept the ball in the strike zone, and despite meager strikeout numbers he was getting good swing-and-miss throughout the game. Finally, the game came down to the first Seth Keller appearance since April 12th of last season, and right now Keller’s ability to keep the ball anywhere near the zone is overshadowing anything else he is doing. For Keller he has missed so much time with injury he has so much catching up to do that results are going to be secondary for awhile, but it’s still discouraging to see his control be so bad at this stage. It’s a long, long road back to the player he showed in early 2023, but if he can ever get back to that point he was a player that was showing promise on par with what has turned out to be a productive, though injury-prone 2022 draft class.
Swing and Misses
Rayven Antonio - 9
Logan Samuels - 8
<img alt="Columbus Clingstones photo day" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XRP93BFOjqWiUt6_1j6MF_0OVFc=/0x171:2153x1606/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/74021025/2207553758.0.jpg">
Photo by Paul Abell/Minor League Baseball via Getty Images
Quintero led Columbus to another win on Saturday night. With Didier Fuentes headlining the prospects in action on Saturday night, the Atlanta Braves system was able to get three wins with Fuentes improving over his opening start on the season. The offenses are starting to emerge a bit with three teams scoring six or more runs.
(6-6) Gwinnett Stripers 6, (5-8) Norfolk Tides 1
Box Score
Statcast
Alex Verdugo, RF: 1-4, .150/.190/.350
Luke Waddell, SS: 1-3, 2B, BB, 2 RBI, .304/.400/.391
Nathan Wiles, SP: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 0.00 ERA
Domingo Gonzalez, RP: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 5.06 ERA
(6-7) Gwinnett Stripers 2, (6-8) Norfolk Tides 6
Box Score
Statcast
Alex Verdugo, DH: 0-4, .150/.190/.350
Garrett Cooper, 1B: 2-3, HR, BB, .243/.417/.351
Chad Kuhl, SP: 4 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 9.95 ERA
Enoli Paredes, RP: 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 1.35 ERA
Gwinnett’s played a good series against the Norfolk Tides, and by splitting their Saturday double header they head into Sunday with a chance to take a second straight series win. Their offensive production in game one heavily centered around Luke Waddell, whose third inning doubles into the left field gap broke the seal by driving in the game’s first two runs. Waddell has played impressively for Gwinnett with a .400 on base percentage early this season, and seems to have made significant adjustment at the plate to try to have more impact with his contact. Waddell’s power is still limited, with his top end exit velocities trailing well behind what you would expect to see from major league hitters, but he has made a concerted effort this season to hit the ball with more authority. He has increased his average exit velocity from 86.5 mph in 2024 to 90.7 mph in 2025, with an increase in hard-hit rate from 25.4% to 35.3%, though this has come with an increase in whiffs from 16.2% to 21.3%. This double header also represented the first real contributions we’ve gotten from Garrett Cooper this season as he had multiple hits and an extra base hit in each game. He followed Waddell up with a base hit for the third run of the inning in the third inning, then in the seventh drove in Waddell again with an opposite field double off of the wall.
In game two Cooper delivered what would be a rare dose of offense for the game, launching a fifth inning, 109 mph home run that tied the game at 2-2. Gwinnett hung in to this game for awhile, but fell apart late as the Tides were able to pile on the runs in their final two offensive innings. The Stripers weren’t using the A squad on the pitching end, but got an interesting start out of Nathan Wiles in game one. Wiles only allowed one hit and no runs over four innings, seeing success with all four of his pitches, but he had no feel for landing the ball in the strike zone this game. Barely half of his pitches were strikes and only 1⁄3 were in the strike zone, but Wiles mix of pitches makes him an interesting player that could end up in the spot starter shuffle throughout the year. Wiles stagnated with the Rays at Triple-A as he has lacked a go-to secondary offering at the higher level, but he has displayed a tweaked changeup this spring that in small samples has been successful. If he can utilize this more effectively as his best secondary offering that could help him get over the hump to being a back-end starter, where despite his performance on Saturday he does have a history of throwing strikes.
Swing and Misses
Nathan Wiles - 12
Chad Kuhl - 10
Wander Suero - 6
Enoli Paredes - 2
Domingo Gonzalez - 2
(4-3) Columbus Clingstones 8, (1-7) Biloxi Shuckers 3
Box Score
Carlos Rodriguez, CF: 2-4, 2B, BB, .414/.486/.448
Geraldo Quintero, LF: 1-3, HR, BB, 5 RBI, .143/.240/.429
Cal Conley, SS: 1-4, BB, RBI, .258/.343/.258
Ian Mejia, SP: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 6.00 ERA
Elison Joseph, RP: 1.2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 5.40 ERA
Columbus stormed out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning, riding that wave to their fourth win in their past five games to get above .500. Shuckers starter Nate Peterson was all over the place in this game, but especially in the first inning, as he walked four of the first five Clingstones hitters to create danger for himself. However, a Jason Delay double play gave Peterson a chance to escape the inning unscathed. Geraldo Quintero was determined not to let him get off so easily though, and when Peterson got behind 2-0 he was sitting dead red. Quintero got a fastball up in the zone and jumped all over it, crushing the grand slam that would define this game. It was the only hit Columbus would get against Peterson, but it made all the difference on the scoreboard. Outside of being able to draw walks — Columbus is the Southern League leader in walks, and has by far the lowest strikeout rate — the Clingstones offense really has only had two standout performers this season. With David McCabe sitting Carlos Rodriguez was the man with by far the most consistent numbers this year, and once again he set the table for this Clingstones lineup. Rodriguez has walked five times and has 12 hits in seven games, all while striking out only twice this season. His ability to get on base has been the driver to this offense, but his lack of impact has been obvious early in the season. It will be interesting to see if Rodriguez is treated similarly to Waddell and told to aim for more impact with the bat. Similarly to Waddell, Rodriguez’s defensive versatility, advanced approach, and ability to make consistent contact do make him interesting, but without any power to speak of it’s hard to see the Braves fitting him into a bench role in the future given their propensity to seek power.
It was a tough day out there for Ian Mejia, despite him mostly managing to keep the damage in check and cover five innings. While Mejia was in the strike zone he wasn’t making quality pitches, leaning heavily on his slider and changeup but not showing the ability to get those pitches on the edge of the zone. He was consistently missing up in the zone with both of those pitches, and he might have been lucky to be facing a team that’s struggling so much offensively otherwise it could have been a much uglier result. Mejia is able to force swing and miss with his slider when he is burying it below the zone, but he just did not do that near enough in this outing. The star of the game on the mound was Elison Joseph, who in the eighth inning got the ball with one out in the inning and the tying run at the plate in a two run game. Joseph had a better-than-usual feel for locating his slider, and he showed just how dangerous of a reliever he is when he is throwing strikes. Joseph carved up Biloxi for 1 2⁄3 innings, striking out four of the seven batters he faced with the only hit he allowed being a slow roller that hit the third base bag. Even his walk wasn’t a terrible at bat for him, as he made competitive pitches with the slider and the batter was able to make better takes. Joseph finished off his outing in impressive fashion, with two fantastic sliders getting two swinging strikeouts to close out his first save of the season.
Swing and Misses
Jake McSteen - 5
Elison Joseph - 5
Ian Mejia - 5
(4-4) Rome Emperors 4, (4-4) Bowling Green Hot Rods 3
Box Score
Patrick Clohisy, RF: 1-3, HR, 2 BB, 2 RBI, .308/.406/.462
Ambioris Tavarez, SS: 2-5, .323/.400/.484
Didier Fuentes, SP: 6 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 7.88 ERA
The top of this Emperors lineup from this game have been carrying the team through the first week of the season, and the addition of Justin Janas over the past four games has been tremendous. Janas has reached base multiple times in all four games, accounting for seven runs on his own. Janas kept it going with two more hits in this game, but it was power that made the difference for this win. First was Patrick Clohisy, who for the first time in his career went deep when a slider was hung on the inside corner and up a bit in the fourth inning. Clohisy isn’t much of a power hitter, but when you come inside on him he has the bat speed to turn on pitches and finds the barrel frequently. So far this season he has as many walks as strikeouts though this was just his second extra base hit. In the eighth inning Lizandro Espinoza ran into a home run of his own, and hopefully this will help to get him rolling on the season. So far he’s been a bit of a mess at the top of the lineup with a lot of strikeouts and little solid contact to show for it, and outside of the two double game on April 5th he hasn’t really done anything to contribute for Rome. This series in particular he has hit safely in three straight games, but has nine strikeouts and hasn’t drawn a walk since opening day. In the ninth inning the Emperors emulated the strategy the Clingstones showed in their first inning and just waited out reliever Jack Snyder. Snyder walked four Rome Emperors, his final one to Clohisy forcing home the go ahead and ultimately winning run in the game.
Didier Fuentes got the ball for his second start of the year, and despite it not living up to some of the absurd outings he posted at the end of the season he was much more in line with what we were expecting to see this season. Fuentes sat in the mid-90’s with his fastball and located it well, getting his best results with this pitch compared to his other two and getting the Hot Rods to swing through the pitch quite often. Where Fuentes just hasn’t quite dialed it in is with his slider, as he has been wild with his slider this season. Fuentes made numerous mistakes both in and out of the zone with his slider, and though he had great results when he did locate it too often he was getting in bad counts or giving up solid contact with his slider. Fuentes is also starting to mix in that splitter more often, though his command of the pitch is still rudimentary. Fuentes really settled into this game in the middle innings and showed his best slider command, but early and late the Hot Rods were able to hurt Fuentes and take advantage of Fuentes’s tendency to really just lay pitches in the zone when he is struggling to command the edges. This approach worked for Fuentes down in Single-A, but at High-A and above he’s going to have to battle more to stick to his command approach rather than relying on trying to use his velocity and movement abilities to get strikes in the middle of the zone.
Swing and Misses
Didier Fuentes - 11
Rob Griswold - 2
(4-4) Augusta GreenJackets 7, (5-3) Hickory Crawdads 8
Box Score
Colby Jones, 2B: 1-3, 2 BB, .280/.400/.360
Eric Hartman, LF: 1-3, BB, 2 RBI, .259/.394/.519
Rayven Antonio, SP: 4 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 6.75 ERA
Logan Samuels, RP: 2.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 1.17 ERA
Sometimes it’s just better to let the other team do the work for you, and Augusta did just that as they had only one extra base hit but rolled up seven total runs thanks to drawing 11 walks in the game. Seven of those went to the trio of Colby Jones, Carlos Monteverde, and Luis Sanchez in the 5th through 7th spots in the lineup, and having that on-base threat consecutively in the lineup proved to be exactly what the doctor ordered. The one extra base hit — Mac Gusette’s second inning double — drove in Monteverde, and put Sanchez in position to score on a ground out. Four walks and a hit batter led to a three-run ninth inning, and with the bases loaded, Augusta trailing by one, and two down in the ninth inning, Nick Montgomery cranked one to the right center field gap. Unfortunately the ball died at the track, with a great running catch from the center fielder robbing Montgomery of an extra base hit and three RBI.
Rayven Antonio struggled to get it done for Augusta, especially in the first inning, but he felt like he was just a tick away from a very good game. True, his command of even his fastball wasn’t good, but with the life his fastball has in the zone he was able to work ahead of hitters frequently. Unfortunately he just didn’t have a great feel for locating his slider, and would either miss with the pitch or leave it over the plate to get hit hard. This was especially apparent on back-to-back two strike doubles in the three-run first inning, and though he settled down and made fewer mistakes as the game went on he still had trouble finishing at bats at times throughout the outing. For Logan Samuels it was another solid outing where he mixed his pitches well and kept the ball in the strike zone, and despite meager strikeout numbers he was getting good swing-and-miss throughout the game. Finally, the game came down to the first Seth Keller appearance since April 12th of last season, and right now Keller’s ability to keep the ball anywhere near the zone is overshadowing anything else he is doing. For Keller he has missed so much time with injury he has so much catching up to do that results are going to be secondary for awhile, but it’s still discouraging to see his control be so bad at this stage. It’s a long, long road back to the player he showed in early 2023, but if he can ever get back to that point he was a player that was showing promise on par with what has turned out to be a productive, though injury-prone 2022 draft class.
Swing and Misses
Rayven Antonio - 9
Logan Samuels - 8
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