Iowans, mark your calendars. On June 20 and June 21 Bleacher Nation will be visiting your fair state in person. Well, part of Bleacher Nation anyway. I will be in the stands when the Cubs take on El Paso that Friday night and Albuquerque on Saturday.
Additional details will follow in the weeks ahead. If there is enough interest we can look to set up some sort of a meet up at a nearby establishment around one or both of the game times. This will be my first trip to Des Moines in a decade or so, and my first ever into Principal Park, so I will have to defer to you for recommendations.
I have no idea who will be on the mound for the Cubs in those games – counting out rotations this far in advance doesn’t really tell you much – but I suspect that Kris Bryant will have joined Javier Baez, Christian Villanueva, Matt Szczur, and Arismendy Alcantara in the Iowa line up by then. I am hoping that John Andreoli will have made it to Triple A as well, and perhaps Rafael Lopez and Arodys Vizcaino, too.
Regardless, it should be a great weekend, and one I have been looking forward to for a long time now. I know Bleacher Nation has a sizable following in the Iowa area, and I hope to meet a small army of you at the ballpark the weekend of June 20.
Scores From Yesterday
Iowa – Iowa had the day off.
Tennessee – The Smokies game was rained out.
Daytona – Daytona scored four in the eighth for the 6-2 win.
Kane County – A run in the first was all Kane County scored. They lost 2-1.
Performances of Note
[Daytona] Albert Almora launched his 2nd home run of the season and finished 2 for 4. Tim Saunders also finished 2 for 4 with this 2nd homer of the year.
[Daytona] Dan Vogelbach finished 2 for 3 with a walk.
[Daytona] Yao-Lin Wang struck out 4 and allowed 2 runs (one earned) on 3 hits and 3 walks in his 4.2 innings of work.
[Daytona] Zack Godley allowed a hit and struck out a pair in his 2 innings of relief. Starling Peralta pitched 2.1 innings of relief and allowed a hit and a walk while striking out 3.
[Kane County] Ben Carhart, at third base in this game, drove in Carlos Penalver for the Cougars’ only run.
[Kane County] Cael Brockmeyer singled twice for Kane County’s only multi-hit game.
[Kane County] Juan Paniagua walked 4 and struck out 3 in his 3.2 innings on the mound. He allowed both runs to score on 4 hits.
[Kane County] Justin Amlung had a very nice apperance. Over 3.1 innings he allowed no walks, no hits, and struck out 3. Tyler Bremer put up a row of zeroes in his one inning of work.
Other News
One factor to keep an eye on as pitching prospects start to surface in Cubs trade speculation and rumors is ground ball rates. As we saw in This Week In The Minors on Sunday, ground balls are generally a win for the pitcher. A pitcher who produces a lot of grounders is probably going to give up fewer extra base hits and home runs than a pitcher who produces more line drives and fly balls. In checking the fly ball rates that have been floated in speculation lately, we have Colorado’s Eddie Butler with a GO/AO of 1.29, Toronto’s Marcus Stroman with a minor league GO/AO of 2.23, and Miami’s Andrew Heaney with a GO/AO of 1.45. There are more stats to consider than just GO/AO, but that number is one of the reasons why I would be very happy to welcome Stroman to the Cubs system in a trade.
NEWSLETTER
