The Southern League Home Run Derby was yesterday, and it featured Kris Bryant. To the surprise of practically no one [Brett: edited that for you, Luke], Bryant not only won the derby, but he put on a show doing. His day included sixteen home runs, including eight in the first round. At the end of the second (of three rounds), he had twelve.
The second place guy finished all three rounds with twelve.
With four more in round three (before he’d even run out of outs), Bryant secured his title and sent his fans home happy. Unsurprised, because after all this is Kris Bryant we’re talking about and destroying baseballs is what he does, but happy.
Scores From Yesterday
Iowa – The Cubs lost this one 5-1.
Tennessee – The Smokies were off for their All-Star break.
Daytona – Daytona never got the bats going in this 7-2 loss.
Kane County – Kane County was also off for their All-Star break.
Boise Hawks – Boise’s first loss came in extra innings, 4-3.
Performances of Note
[Iowa] Javier Baez finished 0 for 4 in this one, but he only struck out once.
[Iowa] Chris Valaika doubled twice. He had the only multi-hit game for the Cubs. His doubles, along with a homer from Ryan Kalish, were the only extra base hits.
[Iowa] Chris Rusin struggled mightily, but Frank Batista pitched two very nice scoreless innings in relief.
[Daytona] Willson Contreras, a catcher, hit his first homer of the season. Gioskar Amaya doubled for the 7th time.
[Daytona] Jose Rosario struck out 6 in 3 innings of relief, but he also allowed 2 runs on 6 hits. Zack Godley struck out the side in his inning of work.
[Boise] Josh Conway was on a pitch count in his long-awaited professional debut. He stayed in for 3 innings and allowed 4 hits while striking out 3.
[Boise] Kyle Schwarber, playing left field, hit his first triple of the season as part of his 2 hit night.
[Boise] Schwarber’s fellow outfielders also had pretty good nights at the plate. Oliver Zapata doubled and walked to finish 1 for 4, and Rashad Crawford doubled and finished 2 for 4.
Other News
Boise outfield Jeffrey Baez is already up to five steals this year. He picked up two yesterday despite not getting a hit.
The All-Star Games for both the Low A Midwest League and the Double A Southern League are today.
If you are following along with the Cubs 2014 draft pick signings, then you might want to bookmark the Baseball America Draft Database. Â They don’t always have the very latest breaking information in there, but they do calculate the pool impact of each signing so you can get an idea what sort of flexibility the Cubs may have remaining.
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