Brett, I’d love to tell you that this will happen every time you visit a minor league stadium, but I doubt you’d believe me if I tried. What happened in Dayton yesterday was just crazy. [Brett: Indeed. I’ll offer my own thoughts, reactions, reflections, etc., later.]
Let me start by saying that Dayton has been a good team this season, and they have some great fans. On a random Thursday in April 8,000 of those fans packed into the ballpark to watch their 9-3 Dayton Dragons take on Kane County. They came to watch Cincinnati’s No 18 ranked prospect (per Baseball America), a high ceiling lefty named Amir Garrett, face a young Cougars lineup that lacks any of the Cubs’ top tier offensive talents.
What they saw was borderline unbelievable.
Not only did Kane County hold Dayton to just one run on two hits, they erupted for nine runs on eleven hits of their own. By the end of the third inning.
When the smoke cleared Kane County had nineteen hits, including six doubles, and had won their 11th game of the season by a score of 13 to 1. Every single Kane County hitter had a hit. In fact, only two of them had just one hit.
I don’t think we should expect a repeat performance today… or ever, really. Nineteen hits against a quality (if in need of experience) prospect on a good team on the road is equal parts impressive and improbable, and whether they were cheering or suffering the fans in attendance were lucky to see it.
If you are an MiLB.TV subscriber, you might keep an eye out for that replay to become available (it should be linked off the boxscore below). The first three innings, at least, should be well worth watching.
[Iowa] Once again Chris Valaika led offense with a 2 for 3 performance that featured his fourth double and a walk. Logan Watkins and Eli Whiteside also had two hits.
[Iowa] Arismendy Alcantara (playing second in this one) hit his second triple of the season.
[Iowa] Eric Jokisch was the starter in this game, and through 5.2 innings he allowed 3 runs (none of them earned) on 3 hits and 2 walks. He struck out 5. Alberto Cabrera followed with 2 strikeouts in 1.1 innings of scoreless relief, and Neil Ramirez walked one batter and struck out 3 in his inning of work.
[Iowa] The Iowa pitching had to be good in this one, because the Iowa defense gave up 6 errors. Watkins, playing shortstop, had two of the errors, Jokisch had two, and both Chris Coghlan and Christian Villanueva had one apiece.
[Tennessee] Corey Black did not have his best control in this game, walking 5 in just 4 innings, and that resulted in him giving up 3 runs despite allowing just 2 hits.
[Tennessee] A Dustin Geiger single broke up the no hitter for Jackson in Game One. Zeke DeVoss reached on a walk and stole both second and third. He now has 5 steals this season.
[Tennessee] Dae-Eun Rhee was the Game Two starter, and he was solid if unspectacular. He did allow 6 hits in his 4 innings of work, but thanks in part to allowing just one walk he limited the damage to 2 runs while striking out 4. Hunter Cervenka struck out 3 and allowed 3 hits in his 2 scoreless innings of relief, and Armando Rivero struck out 3 for the save.
[Tennessee] Kris Bryant walked two more times in Game Two, and he also stole his third base of the season. John Andreoli reached on a single and stole his fifth base.
[Daytona] Rob Zastryzny did not allow any walks in his 4 innings. That’s the good news. The bad news is that he only struck out one and surrendered 4 runs on 9 hits. Zach Cates allowed just one run on 2 hits over the next 4 innings.
[Daytona] Arodys Vizcaino pitched another inning in this game, finishing with a hit and a walk to go with his 3 strikeouts.
[Daytona] Tim Saunders was hitting very well when his Daytona season came to an end last year, and he seems to have picked up where he left off. One of his two hits in this game was his first home run of the year, and he also stole his 6th base. Through 51 PA he is sitting on an .809 OPS.
[Daytona] Albert Almora returned to the diamond this game. He singled in 5 at bats and struck out twice.
[Kane County] Jacob Rogers (3 for 6), Ben Carhart (2 for 6) and Will Remillard (4 for 6) all had two doubles in this game. Those doubles were the only extra base hits for the Cougars.
[Kane County] Jacob Hannemann finished with two hits and stole his 8th base of the season. Carlos Penalver, also with two hits, had his sixth steal.
[Kane County] Rounding out the multi-hit games for the Cougars are two hit performances from Yasiel Balaguert and Daniel Lockhart.
[Kane County] The Cubs Low A franchise had a good day on the mound as well. Daury Torrez kept the ball through 8 innings and allowed just one run on two hits and a walk while striking out 4. The late innings of blow outs can sometimes be rough on relievers, but Nathan Dorris handled this one without any dramatics. And without any hits, walks, or strikeouts either.
Other News
One of these days Daytona is going to break out. They are losing, but they are losing close, often losing in odd ways, and a lot of signs are pointing to their offense being better than it has produced so far. Another of those signs came yesterday when they walked 7 times against just 5 strikeouts.
In case you want to see if Kane County can repeat their extraordinary hit display, they will be on MiLB.TV at 7 ET tonight. Juan Paniagua, a well regarded pitching prospect with a high potential arm, will be on the mound.
In today’s edition of Dylan Heuer’s photographic awesomeness we have Iowa Cubs being awesome with kids, Javier Baez in one of those jazz album cover photos, and Logan Watkins showing off how qualified he is to be in Chicago by laying down a bunt. If Watkins is called up in the next day or two we’ll know for sure that Renteria was watching.
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NEWSLETTER
Brett, I’d love to tell you that this will happen every time you visit a minor league stadium, but I doubt you’d believe me if I tried. What happened in Dayton yesterday was just crazy. [Brett: Indeed. I’ll offer my own thoughts, reactions, reflections, etc., later.]
