Minor Lines: Franklin Arias sits amidst trade deadline rumors

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Worcester: W, 5-3 (BOX SCORE)

Tyler Uberstine got hit around for eight knocks by the Saints (Twins AAA) in Saint Paul, but luckily he struck out eight and only allowed one of his nine allotted baserunners to score. Still, though, the WooSox had a tough time putting runs on the board until after Uberstine departed the game, but the runs did come. Of course, it was Vaughn Grissom’s home run that sealed this one for the WooSox, with some help from some 2025 Major League roster figures like Kristian Campbell and Nate Eaton. Overall,

the Red Sox eeked out a win thanks to their pitching staff striking 13 total Saints out including Hobie Harris slamming the door to strike the side out in the ninth.

Portland: L, 2-3 (BOX SCORE)

The Sea Dogs couldn’t take advantage of four defensive errors from the Flying Squirrels (Giants AA) going 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position. That lone RBI came from Brooks Brannon making the most of Zach Ehrhard’s triple just before him. Ultimately, the Sea Dogs got walked off following some solid pitching throughout the night, but no pitcher emerged unscathed even going multiple innings.

Greenville: W, 4-2 (BOX SCORE)

Three of the Drive’s bottom four batters provided multiple knocks and each (Turner, white, De Leon) chipped in an RBI. Even with some hiccups while stranding eleven guys, the team managed to strike out just five times on the night and let their pitching carry them to a pretty easy win against the Spartanburgers (Rangers High-A).

The real story here, though, is Brandon Clarke facing just seven batters in his outing and getting pulled when he ran into some trouble in the first inning. Luckily, Manuel Medina pitched a solid scoreless four innings, striking out six and, Adam Smith and Jonathan Brand combined to allow just one hit the rest of the way.

But following yesterday’s rumor that the Red Sox were shopping the young pitcher in a package for the Dodgers’ catcher Dalton Rushing, it sparks some wondering if the call toto pull Clarke after showing some weakness early before he could really melt down came from “inside the house.” The theory gets even more solid when considering the other speculated piece of that deal, Franklin Arias, who has been in a bit of a slump himself, didn’t play. Definitely a situation to keep our eyes on in the coming days, but there aren’t too many coming days for Clarke in the rotation before the Red Sox will need to pull the trigger on something if talks pertain to him.

Salem: W, 6-5 (BOX SCORE)

P.J. Labriola has silently put together a pretty good campaign for Salem, and that continued Friday night as the southpaw put together a seven-out save even as he gave up two runs, but he came into the game up 6-3 against the River Dogs (Rays A). This was off the back of a solid first 6 ²⁄₃ innings of the game by Devin Futtrell and Jay Allmer. None of this tinkering of low-leverage would have been plausible, though, without the help of Starlyn Nunez, who’s hit .300 in the month of July, continuing that effort Friday night with three hits. Also, D’Angelo Ortiz of David Ortiz lineage had his second hit in two games. I’m not quite ready to throne him as Little Papi yet but it is encouraging that he’s seeing the ball right away albeit with an extremely low sample size.

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Have a happy Saturday!

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