The entirety of the Cubs minor league organization, from Iowa to Eugene, lost yesterday. Days like that have actually been fairly rare for the Cubs over the past few years. There have been plenty of days with just one win, but it feels like a complete blanking only occurs maybe once or twice a year.
Fortunately, a number of prospects who could have trade value in the coming days have gotten hot at the best possible time. We know teams are scouting the Cubs’ organization (teams like the Tigers, for example), and that means scouts are getting to watch a number of key players playing some of the best ball they’ve played all year.
Christian Villanueva is as hot as I can remember him being, Billy McKinney has been hitting very well lately (even better than normal, which is saying something), Rubi Silva went on a recent power surge, Bijan Rademacher is having his best month of the season, and on and on it goes. While you never want to root for a prospect to be traded, it is nice to see some of the players with the most trade value or who are possibilities to be included in a trade performing near their peaks right when they will be scrutinized the hardest.
[Brett: Just inserting this here, because Luke’s mention of Rademacher got me looking, and holy smokes:
Wow: outfielder Bijan Rademacher has a 14.2% K rate in his first go at AA this year … and a 15.3% BB rate!
Iowa – This game was a nail biter for most of the way, but it ended in a 4-0 Cubs loss. Tennessee – Tennessee jumped to an early lead, but a seven run seventh for Chattanooga resulted in an 8-7 loss for the Smokies. Myrtle Beach – The Pelican quickly fell behind, and unfortunately they stayed there. They lost 10-4. South Bend – South Bend’s early lead slipped away in this 5-2 loss. Eugene – After the third inning all the scoring dried up and the Emeralds lost 4-2. Arizona – Arizona had the day off.
Performances of Note
[Iowa] Jeffry Antigua pitched 4 scoreless innings of relief in this one, allowing 4 hits and a walk while striking out 2.
[Iowa] Matt Szczur doubled for Iowa’s only extra base hit.
[Tennessee] Pierce Johnson struck out 8 in his 6.1 innings on the mound. He allowed 3 runs on 3 walks and 6 hits.
[Tennessee] Billy McKinney doubled and finished 2 for 4. Jeimer Candelario also doubled.
[Myrtle Beach] Pin-Chieh Chen (with a double) and Victor Caratini (with a triple) both finished with 3 hits. Chen also stole his 13th base.
[Myrtle Beach] Chesny Young finished 2 for 5. The on base streak continues and is now at 41 games.
[South Bend] Jeffrey Baez led all Cubs with 3 hits as well as his 19th stolen base. Erick Castillo finished 2 for 4.
[South Bend] Dillon Maples finished off the seventh and pitched a scoreless eighth, but then allowed 2 runs in the ninth. He finished with 2.1 innings, 3 hits, 2 runs, and a strikeout.
[Eugene] Donnie Dewees and Frandy Delarosa both doubled. Those were the only extra base hits for Eugene. Ian Happ hasn’t played for the last few games for reasons currently unknown.
[Eugene] The only extra base hits, that is, other than the second homer of the year for Matt Rose.
[Eugene] Jae-Hoon Ha struck out 3 over 3 scoreless innings as he allowed just 2 hits.
Other News
Corey Black had one of the poorer pitching lines you will see this year. This was one of his occasional rough games (these have cropped up every now and then since he moved to the bullpen), one of the roughest actually, and he lasted only a third of an inning on the mound. In that time frame he allowed five runs to score on just three hits and a walk. The sequence went: walk, hit by pitch, double, single, homer, strikeout. Long term there is still every reason to be high on Black’s stuff as a reliever, but games like this will happen from time to time.
Have you checked in on the Blogathon fundraiser for Make-A-Wish lately? You should check in on it. You folks clobbered the $12,000 goal like you were Taylor Teagarden facing an Aroldis Chapman fastball, so Brett had to raise the bar. And you are now just about 80% of the way to raising $18,000. That’s enough for three wishes. That’s more wishes than Kyle Schwarber hit homers during The Kyle Schwarber Game. That’s awesome. You are awesome. The Blogathon is awesome. Awesomeness all around!
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