On the next to last day of the minor league season the Atlanta Braves brought Davis Polo up to Triple-A to make his debut for the Stripers. After getting injured during the 2024 season, forcing him to miss the 2025 season, Polo opened the season and spent the majority of 2026 there – but his rapid rise over the last month has now seen the 21-year-old reach the level directly below the big leagues as he has hit every level of full season ball this year.
Gwinnett Stripers 2, Indianapolis Indians 1
Box Score
Statcast
- Rowdy Tellez, 1B: 1-4, 2B, 2 RBI, .267/.355/.466
- David McCabe, DH: 1-3, BB, .287/.337/.483
- Patrick Clohisy, CF: 0-3, BB, R, SB, .345/.427/.493
- Davis Polo, SP: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 0.00 ERA
Davis Polo didn’t just make
his Triple-A debut on Saturday night, he shut out a solid Indianapolis lineup through six innings of work. Polo allowed just four hits and a pair of walks as he struck out three and whiffed 11. In total he needed just 84 pitches to get through six, with 50 of them coming as strikes. Polo didn’t rack up the strikeouts the way we’ve been accustomed to seeing this year, as he was pitching to contact more than his normal rate (9.5 K/9 or above at each of his other three stops this year) – however he was missing bats at a solid rate in his toughest test yet with three Indians having big league experience. Polo got five whiffs on 11 swings with his changeup, three whiffs on five swings on his cutter, two on five swings with the slider, and one on 12 swings with his fastball. Only the sinker failed to record a whiff, despite drawing 10 swings on the night. Polo looked quite comfortable with the new challenge, and was throwing harder in his final two innings of work than he did at the beginning of the night – which could be partly due to the game getting a late start due to weather.
Once Polo finished for the night, Rolddy Munoz pitched a scoreless seventh inning. The recently promoted Luis Vargas came in to start the eighth, but didn’t have his command and allowed the lone run on a pair of walks in just a third of an inning. Bailey Falter got the final two outs in the eighth and the first out in the ninth, before giving way to Blake Burkhalter to pick up the save by recording the final two outs. Combined the four pitchers allowed the one run on five hits and four walks with nine strikeouts and 19 whiffs.
The Stripers didn’t have much offense in this one, managing two runs on four hits and three walks. In fact this game was still scoreless in the bottom of the sixth when Rowdy Tellez came up to the plate with a pair of runners on and hit a ground rule double that accounted for all of the Stripers scoring as Luke Williams and Patrick Clohisy came around to score. Williams and Brett Wisely joined Tellez in picking up a double, while the final hit came as a David McCabe single. McCabe also walked in the win, as did Clohisy and Chuckie Robinson.
