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Wednesday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Pitching Probables
Rochester Won, 8-1 vs. Syracuse, 1:05 p.m. Ward (6-4, 5.60) vs. Sproat (0-1, 11.57)
Harrisburg Lost, 11-3 vs. Richmond, 12 p.m. Lara (7-5, 4.13) vs. Cumming (1-5, 5.87)
Wilmington vs. Brooklyn, 6:35 p.m. Susana (3-0, 2.88) vs. De La Cruz (3-6, 4.32)
Fredericksburg vs. Salem, 7:05 p.m. Sykora (3-3, 2.42) vs. Steinbaugh (5-2, 2.96)
DSL Nationals Won, 10-8 OFF DAY

Rochester 8 Syracuse 1
• Rutledge 4⅔ IP, 5H, 0R, 4BB, 6K, HBP
• Brzykcy (W, 1-0) 1IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 2K
• Dunn 2-3, R, BB
• House 2-4, 2R, 2B, HR, RBI
• Meneses 2-4, R, HR, 2RBI, E

Rochester went deep four times, scoring seven runs in a 8-1 smackdown of Syracuse. Jackson Rutledge walked four and struck out six but numerous long counts had him gassed with two out in the 5th. He was lifted after 112 pitches (66 strikes) and allowed no runs on five hits. Brady House led the 11-hit parade with a double and homer. Dylan Crews, Joey Meneses, and Drew Millas also went deep. Roster moves: RHP Orlando Ribalta, 3B Andrés Chaparro added to the 40-man roster and recalled to Washington; RHP Zach Brzykcy reassigned from Harrisburg.

Richmond 11 Harrisburg 3
• Saenz (L, 0-2) ⅔ IP, 4H, 5R, 2ER, 1BB, 2K, 33-21 PIT-K
• Cronin 2IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 3K
• Lawson 3-3, R, HBP, E
• De La Rosa 1-4, R, HR, RBI

The Flying Squirrels went nuts on the Senators for five in the 1st and four in the 2nd as they took the series opener, 11-3. Dustin Saenz retired two of eight batters faced and allowed five runs (two earned) on four hits and a walk. He threw 33 pitches, 21 for strikes. Jeremy De La Rosa ended the shutout bid with a solo HR to lead off the 4th while Cortland Lawson, who singled three times total, scored ahead of J.T. Arruda’s longball in the 5th. The rest of the lineup went 2-for-24 with a walk. Roster moves: RHP Kyle Luckham demoted from Rochester.

Brooklyn 2 Wilmington 0
• Atencio (L, 2-10) 7IP, 6H, 2R, 0ER, 3BB, 6K, HBP
• Collins 2IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 1K
• Hassell 1-3
• McKenzie 1-4

Robert Hassell led off the Wilmington 1st with a single and was left on base. Three innings later Jared McKenzie did the same and moved up to second on a Murphy Stehly HBP, giving him a view of the next three outs. That would be it for the Blue Rocks offense, which was shut out for the 13th time, 2-0 by Brooklyn. You probably already guessed the hard-luck loser was José Atencio, who lost for the third time in five quality starts for the Blue Rocks with both unearned Cyclones runs allowed on six hits, three walks, and six whiffs. Roster moves: SS Armando Cruz reassigned from Fredericksburg.



Fredericksburg 8 Salem 1
• B. Romero 4IP, 6H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 1K, WP
• Amaral (W, 4-1) 3IP, 2H, 0R, 2BB, 1K
• Cooper 3-4, RBI
• Rombach 2-4, RBI
• Vaquero 2-4, 2R, RBI, SB

The FredNats ticket folks made their pitch to come see the new draft picks, and they did not disappoint in a 8-1 hanging of Salem. Caleb Colmavita singled twice, scored thrice, and drove in a run while throwing out one of two basestealers. Seaver King went 2-for-5 with a run scored and an RBI. The rest of the lineup wasn’t too shabby either, as they racked up 14 hits, led by Everett Cooper with three singles. Brayan Romero went the first four and allowed the Red Sox run on six hits, no walks, and one strikeout. The went went to Austin Amaral for his three scoreless innings in relief with two hits and two walks allowed. Roster moves: C Caleb Lomavita, SS Seaver King reassigned from the FCL.

DSL Nationals 10 DSL Marlins 8
• Reynoso 2⅔ IP, 4H, 3R, 3ER, 4BB, 3K
• J. Hernandez (W, 2-1) 1⅓ IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 4K
• J. Robles (SV, 1) ⅔ IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 2K, HBP
• Cabrera 4-5, 2R, HR, 2RBI, CS
• Santos 4-5, 2R, HR, 2RBI
• A. Feliz 2-3, R, 2BB, 2SB, CS
• Rojas 2-4, 2R, BB, RBI, SB

With offense plentiful (26H), pitching scarce (18R), and defense horrible (9E), the DSL Nationals emerged as the 10-8 winners. Franniel Reynoso made his 7th start anbd gave up three runs on four hits and four walks while striking out three. The “W” went to Jose Hernandez with no runs allowed over an inning and a 1/3rd. The save went to Jean Robles with two batters faced, one hit, two struck out. The D-Nats racked up 17 hits, led by Manuel Cabrera and Robert Santos, who both went 4-for-5 with a homer, two runs scored, and two RBI.

18 Commments

  1. RIP Mike Cubbage
    Grrat write up on the 50 years of theVirginian .
    Don’t understand linking here .

  2. Talk about a day of impressive debuts.

    King and Lomavita had excellent first days, and Chaparro definitely started his major league career with a bang!

    We’re also beginning to see the screws tightening on some chronic underperformers. Armando Cruz has no business getting a promotion with a line of .224/.268/.266, but his career line is now .225/.283/.288 across four seasons (yikes). He’d better pull a Jorgelys Mota (who batted .191/.271/.265 in the FCL and got an undeserved promotion to A ball, and is now hitting .302/.362/.395 through 12 games) or he may find himself quickly out of baseball.

    I expect we’ll see the same with the underperforming catchers. I expect Lomavita will quickly be promoted to Wilmington, freeing up space for Bazzell. Who will bear the brunt of the playing time crunch, Max Romero or Israel Pineda, who are hitting .185 and .157, respectively?

    1. I don’t mean to sound like a nitpicker … but Armando Cruz got $3.9M signing bonus from this team in 2021. There’s NO WAY he’s gonna get cut unless he commits a felony or gets into a debilitating car wreck.

      See Antuna, Yasel and Denaburg, Mason and Romero, Seth.

      1. I mean, and he’s also a plus defender at short and 20 years old.

        He has been absolutely unable to hit the ball with any force whatsoever (ISO under .050, low BABIP despite above average speed), and at this point probably even his 90th percentile outcome is a total bust, but he’s not someone I’m trying to push out of the system.

        I woudn’t give him that bonus today, and I’m sure neither would the team, but I’d keep him in the 165 over Stehly or Brown, for example.

      2. For whatever it’s worth, Antuna had a vastly better minor league career than Cruz ever has. In Antuna’s disastrous 2023, which finally saw him released and was by far his worst offensive season, his OPS of .598 was .028 higher than Cruz’s career OPS.

        Also, the state of the farm system is wildly different today than it was in Antuna’s overrated heyday around 2021, when he was still inexplicably getting prospect buzz. Eric Longenhagen at FanGraphs commented in a chat or article not long ago, how the Nationals farm system at that time was one of the worst he’s ever reviewed (see the list here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-22-prospects-washington-nationals-2/ , man, that’s bad!). The Nats weren’t a position to get rid of any talent when guys like Jackson Cluff and Todd Peterson were featuring on “top” prospect lists. Today, it’s a different story for a couple reasons. 1. As you’ve pointed out on your site, with the new player limits, the Nats are highly constrained in making any additions without subtractions. 2. We may soon have multiple players at each level performing better than Cruz (between Fredericksburg and Wilmington we have King, Rafael Ramirez, Cooper, Ochoa-Leyva and Marcus Brown; as I noted above, it’s unlikely King will stay in Fburg long). I’m not sure we can we afford to keep him around as a 3rd choice SS, just because we gave him a bonus 5 years ago. See Sammy Infante as an example of the Nats needing to shorten their leash on consistently underperforming bonus babies. Do I think he’s going to get released this season? Definitely not. But no one should look at his “promotion” as a good thing. If anything, it shows he’s no longer a development priority, and he’s being used to fill gaps in the system, like they’ve done with guys like Cody Wilson or Onix Vega (bouncing between AAA and A ball the past several seasons to cover for injuries, while better prospects follow a more structured path).

        On a darkly cynical side note, Romero has proven that even a felony doesn’t warrant a release (it’s only the second DWI that does it).

        1. That was a dark time. And, as harsh as the write up was, I’d say that it was on the generous side of fair. Even with hindsight, the only guys he whiffed on were Irvin and Parker and the only listed prospect who has increased their chances to be a 2+ WAR contributor is Lara. We had some good relief arms coming up through the system, but really not a lot of value in aggregate. I wonder if that’s the barest any team’s cupboard has ever been. It’s really impressive how well Rizzo and the coaching staff has executed the rebuild from that point.

  3. MLB updated their top 100 prospects list (https://www.mlb.com/prospects/nationals/), and if I’m remembering correctly the Nats dropped one player from their previous ranking, which had Wood, Crews, House and Cavalli, to 3 players. Wood has now formally graduated off the list, and Cavalli’s prolonged absence has rightfully dropped him off the list, in my opinion. The surprise, however, is Travis Sykora’s appearance at #100 (and #3 in the Nats’ system). I know we’re high on him here at Nats Prospects, but this is the first national attention I’ve seen of him, which is highly deserved.

    Some other trends:
    Jarlin Susana jumped up to #4 (also deserved)
    Seaver King comes in at #5
    Cavalli drops to #8 (seems about right, missing a full two years to injury is a massive red flag)
    Morales drops to #9 (probably justified, but I believe he’ll jump up these lists quite pickly)
    Other new faces: Clemmey #6, Dickerson #7, Lomavita #10, Wallace #11, Bazzell #14, Stuart #19, Ramirez #20, Kent #24 (wow, what an overhaul! 9 new additions since July! And that doesn’t include Tena, who seems to have lost prospect eligibility)
    Lara rises only moderately to #17 (feels like a pretty down take; given his pedigree/age/performance-to-level, I’d have him much closer to Susana and Sykora than, say, Jake Bennett (#18))
    Made falls to #25 (I really, really don’t see what the hype is around Made)
    Rutledge tumbles to #27 (which honestly feels like an optimistic take)
    Lord appears for the first time at #30

    1. The promotion of Armando Cruz truly makes me laugh out loud. He’s a poster child for why the Nats needed to spend two of their top three picks on middle infielders. He’s supposed to be a defensive whiz, but he had an error in his first game at Wilmington, his 17th in 77 games this year.

      Despite two hits last night, fellow international bonus baby Vaquero is still lost on in the interstate at .178. Oy.

      1. after 700 PAs in A ball he needed to be moved along, same for Made after over 800 of same in A+. they can hardly be considered promotions but you’re not going to cut bait on either one yet at 20 and 21.

    3. Kiley McDaniel from ESPN has posted his 2024 midseason top 100 MLB prospects update with 2. James Wood, 12. Dylan Crews, 52. Brady House, 61. Jarlin Susana. In his Twitter feed he was asked about Sykora and he replied 151-200. Still a little skeptical but he can win me over

  4. Rutledge threw 4 2/3 shutout innings. Yay! But how on Earth did he manage that while giving up five hits, four walks, and a Robles? That’s more than two baserunners per inning pitched. Yikes.

  5. give King and Lomavita a week to get their timing back and move’em up to Wilmington.

    good for Ribalta, hopefully Brcykcy is coming to join him soon. good for Chapparro, as with Yepez he needs to keep it going. you have to credit the Nats for keeping the AAA to MLB train moving.

    happily, the DSL kids have been competitive this year. I never read what happened with their manager Martinez last year but he’s evidently returned some order to things.

      1. Luke’s offseason post indicated Martinez was to be the manager again in ’23 but when the season started Rafael Ozuna was at the helm. if there was an announced reason for the change I never saw it, Martinez is back this year.

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