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Monday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Pitching Probables
Rochester Won, 5-4 (11 inn.) OFF DAY N/A
Harrisburg Won, 5-4 OFF DAY N/A
Wilmington Lost, 5-2 OFF DAY N/A
Fredericksburg Won, 9-1 OFF DAY N/A
FCL Nationals OFF DAY vs. FCL Astros, 12 p.m.

Rochester 5 Buffalo 4 (11 inn.)
• Rutledge 4⅔ IP, 6H, 2R, 2ER, 0BB, 6K
• Nogosek (W, 1-2) 1IP, 0H, 1R, 0ER, 1BB, 1K
• Wood 2-4, IBB, 2RBI, 2K, SB(10)
• Lipscomb 2-5, R, 2B, RBI

Rochester won the battle of the bullpens, literally walking off in the 11th as Erick Mejia drew a base on balls with the bases loaded in the 11th to force home the game-winning run, 5-4 as the Red Wings took the series, 4-2. Jackson Rutledge pitched into the the 5th for the fifth time in eight starts, allowing two runs on six hits over four and 2/3rds innings. James Wood extended his on-base streak to 25 games with the first of two singles then reached base a third time when the Bisons intentionally walked him in the 10th. Trey Lipscomb doubled to lead off the 11th and tie the game, then came around on Mejia’s unintentional walk after moving up to third on a Juan Yepez forced Buffalo to intentionally walk Drew Millas to loaded the bases with nobody out. Jack Dunn popped up to make that strategy look good until the Mejia unintentional walk.

Harrisburg 5 Erie 4
• Alvarez (W, 2-2) 6⅔ IP, 2H, 3R, 3ER, 2BB, 7K, HR
• Ribalta (SV, 4) 1IP, 0H, 0R, 2BB, 3K
• Crews 2-4, R, 2-2B, 4RBI
• Pinckney 2-4, 2R, 2B
• Lawson 1-3, RBI, CS

Dylan Crews delivered RBI doubles twice, driving in four as the Senators edged the Seawolves to take the finale, 5-4 and the series, 4-2. Andrew Alvarez made it into the 7th for the first time this season, allowing three runs on two hits (one HR) and two walks while striking out seven. He would nevertheless win as the Harrisburg offense squeezed five runs from six hits and two walks and went 4-for-8 with RISP and left on just two baserunners.



Aberdeen 5 Wilmington 2
• L. Young (L, 2-3) 4IP, 3H, 3R, 2ER, 0BB, 3K, HR, HBP
• C. Romero 2IP, 1H, 0R, 1BB, 3K
• White 1-3, R, 2B
• Lile 1-3, SB, CS

The Blue Rocks were shot down by the Iron Birds, 5-2, to end their four-game win streak though they still took the series, 4-2. Luke Young lost his third straight start as Aberdeen got to him for three runs on three hits (one HR) over four innings. He struck out three and hit a batter. T.J. White doubled and scored a run while Daylen Lile singled and stole a base. Viandel Peña also singled to round out Wilmington’s three-hit barrage.

Fredericksburg 9 Myrtle Beach 1
• Sthele (W, 1-3) 5IP, 3H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 7K
• K. Rodriguez 2IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 4K
• Quintana 4-5, R, 2B, 3B, HR, 2RBI
• Ochoa 2-3, R, BB, RBI
• Pimentel 2-5, R, RBI, SB

Roismar Quintana hit for the cycle with a single in the 2nd, a double in the 4th, a triple in the 6th, and a homer in the 9th as Fredericksburg pummeled the Pelicans, 9-1 to split the series. It was the first cycle by a Nationals minor-leaguer since Randy Novas in 2012. Travis “Sunday” Sthele went five innings for the second time this season and won his first game, allowing the lone Myrtle Beach on three hits. He walked none and struck out a career-high of seven. Nate Ochoa reached base three times with two singles and a walk while Brandon Pimentel and Tyler Baca both went 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored.

FCL Nationals, 3-7, 4th Place FCL East, 6GB
The F-Nats won twice last week but it now appears that 2024 could be a battle with their co-tenants to stay out of the FCL East cellar. The FCL Nats and FCL Astros meet today and the F-Nats will only leave West Palm Beach once this week, as they travel to Jupiter to play the F-Cards on F-Thursday.

25 Commments

  1. Luke, is there any more info on Randy Novas? I couldn’t even find a Baseball Reference page for him. How did you find out about his cycle? Is there any way to find out a history of cycles among the affiliates? Quintana isn’t really a prospect right now, but for one day he is the main story in the minors!

    1. Baseball reference shows Randy Encarnation as hitting for the cycle for the DSL Nationals in 2012. Randy Novas could be an alternative name for him.

      1. Correct. As I recall it, he changed from one surname to the other when he came to the GCL.

    2. I did a search on all my previous posts for “hit for the cycle” — seems unlikely I would’ve used any other syntax. It is, of course, possible that it may have also happened during the time that I was hospitalized in August 2016.

  2. BTW, since I was looking at the 2012 DSL Nationals, I noticed that they were quite the outlier with 8 players who made the major leagues. (They also fed the 2013 GCL team that went 49-9).

    Other than that 2011-2012 wave, it’s more typical to get 1-2 players from the DSL team that make it to the bigs.

    2008 DSL1: Eury Perez, Adrian Sanchez
    2008: DSL2: none
    2009: Joel de la Cruz
    2010: Wilmer Difo, Wander Suero
    2011: Difo, Jose Marmelejos, Yermin Mercedes, Raudy Read, Suero
    2012: Rafael Bautista, Marmelejos, Mercedes, Read, Reynaldo Lopez, Jefry Rodriguez, Suero, Phillips Valdez
    2013: Kelvin Gutierrez, Mercedes
    2014: Victor Robles
    2015: Pedro Avila
    2016: none
    2017: Joan Adon
    2018: Jose A. Ferrer
    2019: none

    Juan Soto did not play in the DSL. He started with the GCL.

    1. Interesting info. Whatever they were doing right about 12 years ago has definitely dried up now.

      A common denominator of the 2010-12 alums is that many of them were “older” signees, age 17-18 when they started. That market inefficiency they were exploiting doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

    2. Thanks for the research!

      Indeed, as KW said, our Dominican pipeline has run dry, and has been for many years now. No one 2020 onward looks particularly likely to make the majors. Cristhian Vaquero was looking like a good bet until this season. But then again, I don’t think anyone would have pegged Yermin Mercedes, Joel de la Cruz or Phillips Valdez as likely major leaguers either.

      Still, something has gotta give. The past several years in the DSL have been problematically bad.

      1. Let’s hope Vasquero doesn’t end up a disappoint ment like Fernando Seiguinoil .

        1. Seguignol was a big bopper in the minors and hit 17 homers in 366 MLB AB with a .451 SLG! Vaquero does not proven success yet in the minors.

        2. thats a name that I haven’t heard in a while, I remember Seiguinoil when he played in Harrisburg

    3. Great summary – the DSL 1 team was used as the “veteran” team as evidenced by its record – 49-15 in ’07; 55-17 in ’08. While the DSL 2 team was developmental – 21-45 in ’07 and 25-39 in ’08. As one showed promise they would move him from 2 to 1. Also 1 featured much older players, most of which never made it to the USA, such as 24 year old Osvaldo Rodriguez, went 12-0 with a 1.01 ERA.

      1. I can only guess that this was where Rizzo was dealing with financial constraints for any area not directly tied to immediate success. hopefully the current path is back to the long term model as well as spending for MLB players at the appropriate time.

        1. As has been noted before, the Nats are one of 10 clubs to only have one DSL team. It’s especially troubling that having all your talent concentrated in one team, rather than across two, still resulted in – by far – the worst team in the league last season. There’s a lot of work to be done from investment to scouting to coaching.

    4. Five and dime player development
      So many kids signed out of Latin America for the price of a UPS truck driver yearly salary

  3. Ribalta has been doing great this year. He’s a really big guy from Cuba, and I’m wondering if he can fire the ball? Does anyone know what his stuff is?

    1. he’s got an upper nineties fastball and when he’s on a sharp breaking slider. he’s been on lately

    2. He was throwing in the AFL in 2022. I really don’t understand what he’s still doing in Harrisburg at this point. He’s 26 and not getting any younger.

  4. With all the games that Crews was missing up until the last week or so, you have to wonder if he was dinged and is just now getting healthy.

  5. Nice Monday report sheet with
    Wood , Crews , Alvarez topping the cart .
    Amazing that Quintana legged out a triple ( like Willie Horton getting a triple)
    How do we phonetically pronounce Sthele?
    A song from the 80s coming to mind if it’s Steel .

  6. I am impressed that Quintana not only hit for the cycle, he hit for the cycle in order (single, double, triple, HR).

  7. Cade Cavalli with a nice 1st rehab outing for the FCL Nats:

    From Bobby Blanco’s twitter:

    “Cade Cavalli pitched 2.2 scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts, 1 hit and 1 walk while facing 10 batters in his first rehab start with the FCL Nats. The hit was a double by José Abreu.”

  8. something I missed is that it appears Luke Young worked from only the stretch last year. now he works from the full windup when possible. he also looks away from home plate briefly while working from the windup but not from the stretch. last year he looked away when no runners were aboard only. I wonder if they’ve tried to get him to remove this from his motion entirely?

    how’s that for some minutia of prospect watching?

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