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Monday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Pitching Probables
Rochester Won, 8-5 OFF DAY N/A
Harrisburg Lost, 4-0 OFF DAY N/A
Wilmington Lost, 8-2 OFF DAY N/A
Fredericksburg Lost, 8-2 OFF DAY N/A
FCL Nationals OFF DAY vs. FCL Mets, 12 p.m.
DSL Nationals OFF DAY @ DSL Cardinals, 11 a.m.

Rochester 8 Worcester 5
• Watkins (W, 3-2) 7IP, 4H, 1R, 1ER, 2BB, 6K, PO @ 1B
• Garcia (SV, 9) 1⅓ IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 2K, 1-0 IR-S
• Call 3-3, 2R, 2BB, HR, 3RBI,
• Mejia 2-4, R, HR, 2RBI
• Lindsly 1-4, 2R, BB, HR, 3RBI

Red Wings homered three times in the late going and survived an Amos Willingham meltdown to take the series finale from Worcester, 8-5. Spenser Watkins dominated the (ugh) Woo Sox with seven innings of one-run ball on four hits and two walks to win his third. Willingham gave up a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth and allowed three hits total while walking two. Rico Garcia got the last four outs for his ninth save. Alex Call reached base five times with two singles, two walks, and a homer and drove in three, a total matched by Brady Lindsly with a homer and run-scoring groundout.

Reading 4 Harrisburg 0
• Lara (L, 3-1) 6IP, 7H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 4K, 2HR
• Grissom 1⅓ IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 2K
• Stubbs 2-4
• Wilson 2-4

Harrisburg was shut out again, 4-0 to lose the series, 4-2. Andry Lara gave up two solo HRs and seven hits total over six innings, but took the loss – his first at AA while notching his seventh straight quality start. The Senators got doubles from J.T. Arruda and Dérmis Garcia but neither came with anyone in front of them as Harrisburg went 0-for-8 with RISP and left on eight baserunners. C.J. Stubbs and Cody Wilson led the hit column with two singles apiece.

Hudson Valley 8 Wilmington 2
• Atencio (L, 0-4) 4IP, 9H, 5R, 5ER, 1BB, 4K, E
• W. Arias 1⅓ IP, 1H, 0R, 1BB, 3K, 1-0 IR-S
• Glasser 4-5, R, 2B, HR, 2RBI
• Frizzell 1-3, BB, SB

The Renegades opened up a one-run game with a three-run 4th and cruised to an 8-2 win that secured a 5-3 series win. José Atencio remains winless in five High-A starts, as he dropped his fourth game with five runs let in on nine hits and a walk over four innings. Phillip Glasser returned to the lineup with a vengeance, racking up eight total bases on two singles, a double, and homer and driving in two to power the Wilmington offense.



Kannapolis 8 Fredericksburg 2
• Gray (L, 0-1) 3IP, 3H, 3R, 3ER, 1BB, 2K, HR
• Sthele 2IP, 6H, 5R, 5ER, 2BB, 4K, HR
• McKenzie 2-4, 2R, HR, 2RBI
• Farmer 1-3, R, BB

Kannapolis never trailed as they pummeled Fredericksburg, 8-2 to take the series, 5-1. Josiah Gray did little to disprove the maxim that rehab starts are overrated as the Nats sole All-Star representative in 2023 was manhandled for three runs on three hits (one HR) and a walk to take the loss. Travis “Sunday” Sthele took over and threw in-game BP yet again, giving up the last five runs on six hit and two walks. Jared McKenzie homered again to account for both FredNats runs and two of the four hits on the afternoon. Roster moves: RHP Josiah Gray assigned from Washington for MLB rehab.

FCL Nationals, 11-14, 5th place FCL East, 6GB
The F-Nats reverted to the mean with a 1-4 week and tumbled back into the FCL East cellar, six games off the pace. This week, the FCL Nationals only leave West Palm Beach to play the FCL Cardinals in Jupiter on Thursday and have another Friday off.

DSL Nationals, 2-2, 5th place DSL Central, 2½ GB
The DSL Nationals broke even in their first week of the ’24 campaign, averaging 3.75 R/G on offense while giving up 4.50 R/G (Lg. Avg. is 5.71). This week, it’s home games on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday and road games on Thursday and Saturday, with Wednesday off.

12 Commments

  1. Wow, the clock struck midnight, and JDLR really turned back into a pumpkin, didn’t he? After playing really well during his extended rehab in Fburg, he returned to Wilmington on fire, hitting .333/.385/.792 in his first 6 games, and managing to only strike out 4 times in 26 plate appearances. Well… since then, he’s gone 1 for 21, striking out 42% of the time. Seems he hasn’t yet turned a corner.

    Phillip Glasser has been a revelation, hitting .319 in 34 games, while managing to walk more often than he’s struck out. I understand keeping him in Wilmington for a bit longer, but at the moment it’s looking like he’s mastered A ball, and could use a more age appropriate challenge (it should be noted that he’s nearly 2 years older than average in the Sally League).

    Quite a few ugly pitching outings, including from our resident All Star. Looks like he might need a long rehab. Meanwhile, his rotation filler, DJ Herz, looks like a work in progress. He hasn’t been clobbered, nor has he had a control-based meltdown yet, but as it did a week ago, it looks like he still needs a bit more time in AAA.

  2. so Hassell III is this weeks mystery, plays the full game Tuesday and gets two hits. a rain-out Wednesday and then he’s missing from the lineup ever since. if there has been any comment on this I’ve missed it.

    Lara showing a nice consistency in AA. I still think we were lucky not to lose him in the Rule 5 and I bet there is at least one club with some “I told you sos” going on.

  3. while the prospect news out of Rochester has been dimmed by Wood’s absence and Lipscomb’s refusal to take a walk every now and then, the team is at least playing good baseball and providing the local fans with some reasons to come out and watch. if you have to see AAAA players it helps when a good portion are homegrown kids who’ve made their way to this level. that is no small accomplishment and I’m very happy for Baker, Cluff, Dunn, Kieboom and Lindlsy.

    1. More so than the walk rate (strangely enough Lipscomb posted his highest walk rate at any level, even including his breakout senior year of college, in the majors), is Lipscomb’s almost complete power outage. He was posting healthy, albeit not great, ISOs of between .100 and .150 in his first two pro seasons, but this year it’s completely disappeared. In the majors, his ISO was .037, which has continued in the extremely hitter friendly Int’l League, with a .044 ISO. Not sure what to make of it, but he’s not helping his promotion case.

      1. well, if you’re swinging at pitches out of the zone you’re less likely to hit it on the barrel

  4. Was it Keith Law that was way, way down on Lipscomb as a prospect? One of the major guys were. Said he’d never hit for enough pop to be a regular in the majors.

    1. I understand the criticisms of Lipscomb. He doesn’t walk enough and his power is mediocre at best, and it doesn’t look like he has the sort of upside you’d want from your starting 3B on a playoff contending team.

      The problem is that right now the Nats don’t have maybe two of those kind of guys currently in their line up. For as unimpressive as Lipscomb’s bat was in his major league cameo he was still worth 0.7 bWAR or 0.2 fWAR in 33 games, carried largely by his defensive flexibility. Over a 150 game season that’s a 1-3 WAR player, and better than or comparable to other infielders in Senzel, Garcia, Gallo, Nunes and Meneses, whose position Lipscomb can play. All we need is Lipscomb to be better than these guys to justify playing him. Ildemaro Vargas has shown just how valuable a powerless, low OBP utility infielder can be, if that’s all he ever amounts to, I’d consider that a massive success. His 0.2 or 0.7 WAR, whichever calculation system you prefer, is already more valuable than about 995 of our last 1000 “prospects”. But prospectors tend to not like guys with low ceilings and high floors.

  5. I was thinking about JDL hitting slump like a ship nose diving to
    Davey Jones locker

  6. Didn’t Lipscomb hit in a matchbox stadium at UT Vols ?
    Todd , Liriano taters again @ DSL not Hurtado
    Robert Santos triples . Must have just missed a tater with weird carom .

  8. Good start to season for Doimil Perez at the Complex .
    Swing guy ? Bullpen ? Time will tell
    He sure helped out Leo darlyn

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