Toledo Mud Hens 2, St. Paul Saints 1 (box)
Joe Miller and the rest of Toledo’s pitching staff held St. Paul to four hits on Friday, delivering the first win of the series to the Mud Hens, 2-1.
Miller got the call-up from High-A West Michigan and cruised through the first three innings despite allowing a baserunner in each of those frames. Miller had a similar spot start with Toledo in July, but this was his first Triple-A win.
Toledo struck first with back-to-back singles in the bottom of the second. Jace Jung and Eduardo Valencia both moved up on a ball that got by St. Paul’s catcher. Jung left third as Kevin Newman made contact and scored easily for the first Mud Hens run of the day.
Andrew Navigato slapped one into left field, setting up a play at the plate. Valencia beat the errant throw to make it 2-0, Toledo.
The lone mistake from Toledo’s staff came on the first pitch of the fourth inning. Miller left a slider a bit too high, and Gabriel Gonzalez hit a tall home run over the left field wall. Miller bounced back immediately, striking out three of the next four batters he faced — all three on the fastball. Max Anderson made an error at third on a playable ball that just ate him up.
That’s pretty much all of the offensive action for the day, though. Navigato doubled in the fifth, and St. Paul had base hits in the fifth and sixth, but the game ended on 19 consecutive outs.
Codi Heuer took over for Miller in the sixth and recorded his second Triple-A hold of the year. He gave up a base hit but struck out two and looked fine otherwise. Chase Lee filled up the strike zone in the seventh and eighth, while also recording a hold — his fourth. Lee’s arm slot had St. Paul’s hitters uncomfortable, and they never produced solid contact off him.
Tyler Mattison struck out the side in the ninth to notch his first save of the year, at any level of the minors.
Anderson: 0-3, 2 K
Jung: 1-3, 1 R, 1 K
Navigato: 2-3, 2B (12), 1 RBI, 1 K
Miller (W, 1-1): 5.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K; 76 pitches (46 strikes)
Erie SeaWolves 4, New Hampshire Fisher Cats 3 (box)
Erie worked all the way back from a 3-0 first-inning deficit on Friday night to win a fourth consecutive game against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.
The Cats jumped all over Erie starter Kenny Serwa in the first, who lacked command early on. A leadoff walk is never a good sign, and New Hampshire was turning singles into doubles with a couple of aggressive steals. A pair of base knocks and a sac fly quickly made it a 3-run deficit for Erie, but the SeaWolves answered fast.
After going down 1-2-3 in the first, Erie opened the second with back-to-back singles from Jake Holton and Eliezer Alfonzo. Seth Stephenson sent one right back up the middle, whizzing right by starter Rafael Sanchez and bouncing off second baseman Ryan McCarty’s glove. The official scorer ruled it a fielder’s choice with Holton scoring on an error.
Roberto Campos kept things going with a single up the middle, bringing Alfonzo around. Holton got his chance to drive in a run in the third, after John Peck led off with a double. He lined the ball over shortstop to tie the game at three.
Serwa was fine for the rest of his five-inning start. He has two versions of the knuckleball and struggles with the faster one at times. Dropping the slow one into the mid-to-low 70s worked well here. A couple of Fisher Cats sat on it and took the ball for a ride, but none got enough behind it to do damage.
Rain delayed the game for 1 hour and 16 minutes in the third, knocking Sanchez out, but Serwa stayed in. He would have faced the minimum through the remaining three innings he pitched, but an error extended the third by one batter. He finished strong, striking out of pair batters in each of his final two frames.
Meanwhile, Erie was looking for opportunities to score, but it wasn’t so easy without any of the star prospects hitting. Josue Briceno, Max Clark and Thayron Liranzo all sat, and Kevin McGonigle went 1-for-5. The SeaWolves had baserunners on in the fourth and fifth, but the real threat came in the sixth.
Stephenson took a curveball that stayed in off the shoulder and promptly stole second, because that’s what he does. Campos walked to put two men on with McGonigle in the hole, but the next three SeaWolves went down in order, leaving things tied.
Richard Guasch replaced Serwa at the bottom of the sixth. After getting two quick outs, Guasch ran into trouble. A walk, a base hit and a stolen base put two runners in scoring position, but Guasch got the fly ball to get out of it. He didn’t look good at all, but pulled things together to strike out the side in the seventh. A complete 180-degree turn before turning things over to Andrew Magno.
Campos gave Erie the lead in the top of the eighth. Stephenson led off the inning with a walk and looked dead to rights on a lefty pickoff move that fooled him — it kind of looked like a balk. Instead, New Hampshire’s first baseman launched the ball into left field, and the fastest player in Detroit’s farm system was on third with no outs. Campos simply poked the ball through the left side with the infield playing in.
Magno worked around a pair of singles in the eighth and closed out the game with a 1-2-3 ninth, including a pair of strikeouts to end it.
McGonigle: 1-5, 1 K
Holton: 2-4, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K
Campos: 3-3, 2 RBI, 1 BB
Serwa: 5.0 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 6 K; 92 pitches (56 strikes)
Great Lakes Loons 8, West Michigan Whitecaps 1 (box)
West Michigan had no clue what to do against Adam Serwinowski and the Great Lakes Loons on Friday as the Whitecaps fell, 8-1, bringing the series back to a tie at two games apiece.
Serwinowski held West Michigan to four hits and one run over seven innings while striking out 12 and walking none. That’s about as dominant as it gets without flirting with history. Two of those Whitecaps hits off Serwinowski came in the first, off the bats off Woody Hadeen and Peyton Graham, and then it was quiet after that.
Izaac Pacheco homered for the 16th time this year to tie the game at one in the top of the fourth, but a seventh-inning Andrew Jenkins single and two walks in the ninth were the only other baserunners for West Michigan.
Ryan Brown picked up where Serinowski left off, striking out the side in the eighth, and Joseilyn Gonzalez worked around the two walks with a 7-run lead.
West Michigan’s pitching staff had a far worse day. Eight runs on nine hits usually spells out the problem, but the Whitecaps also walked nine batters while using seven pitchers. There wasn’t a whole lot of good to speak of.
Preston Howey walked the first two batters he faced, ultimately finishing the day with five. A double-play bailed him out of trouble in the opening frame, but nothing was stopping back-to-back doubles in the second. Two liners into the grass later and Great Lakes had a 1-0 lead.
Howey wriggled his way out of that mess despite walking a batter later on in the inning. He briefly found his footing with a 1-2-3 third, but Jake Gelof punished a leadoff walk in the fourth with a 2-run home run. Haden Erbe took over after Howey’s fifth walk and got the final two out of the fourth.
Dylan Smith continued his rehab work in High-A with a 1-run fifth. A clean inning would be better, but neither single he allowed was hit hard. The lead runner got on with a broken-bat blooper into right center field, and the RBI came on a soft grounder perfectly between the middle infielders. No reason to panic.
Carlos Lequerica went 1-2-3 in the sixth and ended the day as the only West Michigan arm to throw a full inning without giving up a run. Woo-Suk Go opened the seventh with consecutive walk. A double steal set up a sacrifice fly, making it 5-1, and one more walk forced Matt Stil to take over.
Stil promptly threw the ball in the dirt and let a run score. After finally getting out of the inning, Stil ran into more trouble in the eighth. Four consecutive hits — single, double, single, single — made it 8-1, and another wild pitch advanced the remaining runners before yet another pitching change.
It’s just one of those days where everyone gets hit. Dariel Fregio got the final out of the eighth.
Pacheco: 1-3, HR (16), 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K
Graham: 1-4, 1 K
Howey (L, 6-3): 3.1 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 2 K; 67 pitches (33 strikes)
St. Lucie Mets 8, Lakeland Flying Tigers 4 (box)
Lakeland got on the board first, but things fell apart in the second half of Friday’s 8-4 Flying Tigers loss to the St. Lucie Mets.
Some poor weather prognostication led to St. Lucie starting 2025 10th-round pick Tyler McLoughlin. He reached his pitch count after five batters, but that was enough for Lakeland to get a run in. Junior Tilien singled in Jesus Pinto, who walked to open the game.
Daviel Hurtado took over for McLoughlin and walked the first two batters he faced, bringing another run in. Lakeland continued to put baserunners on each inning against Hurtado, but they didn’t score again until the fifth. Samuel Gil doubled in Ricardo Hurtado, knocking Daviel Hurtado out of the game.
The Flying Tigers built up a 3-1 lead behind the arm of starer Luke Stofel. A pair of singles and a hit batter led to a run in the second, but Stofel recovered after that for 10 consecutive outs. That streak ended with two outs in the fifth, though.
Stofel gave up back-to-back singles and Randy Guzman brought both men home with a triple over the head of Nick Dumesnil in center field. A bloop single that stayed inside the right field line gave St. Lucie the lead and Stofel the loss. There’s a lot of good in this start, but the shortcomings are the reason Stofel has spent all year in Lakeland.
Ronny Chalas took over in the sixth and held the Mets scoreless, but Jorger Petri was not as effective in the seventh. Three straight base hits brought in a fifth run for St. Lucie, and it could have been worse had one not ran into an out on the base path.
Lakeland’s last attempt to make the game competitive came in the eighth. Pinto led off with a single, Dumesnil walked and Carson Rucker made it a 1-run game with a soft liner to left. The offense fizzled after that, and Logan Berrier threw away any progress made with a 3-run bottom of the inning.
Berrier gets some slack because an error kept things going and led to one of those runs being unearned, but the first two are on him in a crucial moment. No ninth-inning magic. Lakeland must win both weekend games to force a tie in the six-game series.
Pinto: 2-5, 2B (1), 2 R, 1 BB, 1 K
Dumesnil: 0-5, 1 BB, 4 K
Tilien: 2-4, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 1 K
Stofel (L, 6-4): 5.0 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 8 K; 86 pitches (57 strikes)
