Rochester Wins 2nd Half International League Title
| Team | Yesterday | Today | Pitching Probables |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rochester | Won, 15-8 | OFF DAY | N/A |
Rochester 15 Buffalo 8
• Early 1⅔ IP, 0H, 3R, 0ER, 3BB, 2K
• P. Schultz 3BF, 1H, 0R, 2BB, 0K, 3-3 IR-S
• Cebert (W, 1-2) 2⅓ IP, 2H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 2K, HR, 3-0 IR-S
• Pineda 4-6, 3R, 2HR(12), 2B(10), 3RBI
• Pinckney 3-4, 2R, 2HR(16), 4RBI
• Peguero 2-5, R, 2B(26), HR, RBI
• Adams 2-6, 2R, 2B(15), HR(16), 2RBI
The Red Wings battled back from deficits of 3-0 and 5-1 to stampede the Bisons, 15-7 and clinch the second-half title for the International League. Connolly Early made his second rehab outing and pitched into the 2nd before he was lifted with two out and the bases loaded, thanks to a pair of walks and an error. Paxton Schultz faced the next three batters and retired none of them, giving up a two-run single and then issuing back-to-back walks to let in all three inherited runners.
Jack Cebert ended it with a popup to himself and then pitched two more innings, allowing a two-run HR to put Rochester in the aforementioned four-run hole. He got the benefit of the Red Wings putting a five-spot on the board in the 5th to go up 6-5. Rochester piled on with one in the 6th, five more in the 7th, and three in the 9th, hitting eight homers total with Cayden Wallace the sole batter not to reach base in the 19-hit parade.
With the win, the Red Wings will face the RedBirds in a best-of-three series to determine the International League champion. No word yet on which Rochester reliever will open the series, which will be played entirely in Memphis because MLB said so, not anything frivolous like head-to-head matchup or overall record in the regular season.
Congrats to the Red Wings for persevering after going down 5-1. They earned a very deserved playoff spot after finishing the overall season 8 games better than the next best team, quite aptly Memphis, who they’ll face off against. Like yesterday, it was the bats that carried them there. Rochester scored more runs than any team in the IL (843, two more than Charlotte overall, and 45 more than any other team in the 2nd half!), while their pitching has been good, but not great (4th fewest runs allowed), and has trailed off considerably as the season has progressed (in the 2nd half Rochester allowed the 9th fewest runs).
Memphis finished the season poorly, 36-39, so they’re there for the taking.
Speaking of offense, the Red Wings have a remarkably good batch of players, many of whom came out of nowhere to put up excellent seasons.
’25 OPS -> ’26 OPS — OPS gain
Romero: .588 -> .879 — .291
King: .631 (oof) -> .898 — .267
Wallace: .686 -> .896 — .210
Peguero: .684 -> .849 — .165
Lipscomb: .697 -> .861 — .164
Also, Adams: .560 (in MLB) -> .894 — .334
Crazy. Though it’s mostly the same leadership in Rochester as in past years, so I’m not sure the gains can be purely chalked up to Daubach, the hitting coach, working wonders, but it certainly is a good thing whatever he/they’re doing!
Also, in case anyone was wondering, Rafael Ramirez is the Nationals best hitter according to wRC+.
It blew my mind. I’d noticed he was having a quietly good season, but I hadn’t registered that he was having the BEST offensive season among all players in our organization, and by a decent margin. He’s got decent power (.186 ISO, .462 SLG), but he was carried by an insane 18.8 BB%, good for a ridiculous .424 OBP. Willits has been rightly lauded for his really good eye, walking “only” 17.7% of the time this season.
In fact, Willits and Ramirez have had strikingly similar seasons:
BB%: 17.7% (Willits) vs 18.6%
K%: 21.0% vs 22.0%
AVG: .265 vs .276
OBP: .406 vs .424
SLG: .463 vs .462
ISO: .198 vs .186
Though they did differ in a few key ways. Willits is a bit more than 2 years younger than Ramirez, and made it all the way to AA by season’s end, while Ramirez finished in A+. Willits has WAY more speed than Ramirez, stealing 62 bases to Ramirez’s 6, and Willits plays a more premium position (SS) than Ramirez (mostly 2B, but also 3B). Still, this got my attention. Ramirez had a significantly better season than much more highly rated infield prospects like Cruz, Fitz-Gerald, Dickerson, James and Fien, while being a similar age.
Nice dig Will
Good Will Hunting
Drum roll like in vaudeville
Good part of that Cleveland deal
Autumn migration – why not birds in playoffs AAA??
Nice picture , Luke today .
Pineda has been a very nice
Gradual development from AA to AAA this year
Herz back
Now we just await next spring when the young Turks see the TJ and other injury themed arms return to full action
Rosario , Stuart , Sykora
Then on the everyday side which infielders playing more outfield now like Fien and Dickerson allow other infielders to rise along with them up the chain .
Ramirez Jr’s year was super weird.
He’s in a big mix of decent A-ball infield prospects. He does OK, from the start but not good enough to be in the first crop of promotions. When it’s time for the second crop in late July, he’s seemingly earned it over, say, Dickerson. But when he’s promoted to A+ in late July, he only gets into 3 games, during which he crushes the ball (wRC+ of 224), before getting sent back to low-A, where he played and played well for the remainder of the year.
I’m not confident that Ramirez is a better prospect than Dickerson or Mota or Fien or James but he has a plausible case. There has to be something non-public to explain those level assignments.
Nats place Cole Henry on unconditional release waivers.
Realize that Henry has not had a great 2026, and he is oft-injured, but he has stuff when healthy. Wouldn’t be shocked if he turns out to be a least at average MLB relief arm at some point. Kind of hard to believe that of all of the players on the 40 man roster, Henry is the least likely to help in the future. Then again, front offices typically don’t have problem moving on from players that they didn’t draft or initially develop.
You may be right, but I think the odds are against anyone with thoracic outlet surgery being effective at the MLB level.
To revert to a discussion from a few days ago, Henry wasn’t yet formally released because, as MLBTR puts it, “Injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers”, which is why the Nationals have “requested” his release. I still don’t understand the nuance between Henry’s “release” which isn’t a release, and where this justification comes from in MLB’s rules, but it confirms my suspicion that injured players cannot be released in the conventional way, though they CAN be released…
I still don’t understand how Wyatt Mills didn’t get classified as injured when the Nats acquired him, though. But there’s probably some gray area that was at play here where Mills maybe wasn’t deemed sufficiently injured by the Dodgers but was according to the Nats?
sure, these things aren’t binary. Pitchers, as you know, have to pitch through pain and stiffness. So we though trying to rest him was worthwhile and the Dodger’s didn’t.