There is so much to talk about for the Braves minor league system from the opener of this week’s action. The Tate Southisene hit by pitch that forced him from the game is the news that could have the biggest ramifications on the rest of the season, but it was by far the low point of an otherwise impressive day from some top prospects. Conor Essenburg had a three-home run game in Augusta while Davis Polo pitched his best game of the year, and Owen Carey had multiple home runs for Rome while Eric Hartman
recorded three hits.
(52-48) Gwinnett Stripers, (46-54) Durham Bulls POSTPONED
(44-48) Columbus Clingstones 5, (48-48) Rocket City Trash Pandas 4
- Tate Southisene, SS: 0-1, HBP, .000/.500/.000
- Archer Brookman, C: 2-2, 2 BB .258/.355/.392
- Julio Robaina, SP: 6 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 2.87 ERA
- Isaac Gallegos, RP: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 3.18 ERA
Tate Southisene has had a marvelous season in the lower minor leagues, and his aggressive promotion to the Columbus Clingstones injected a load of hype into a lineup thin on prospect talent. His first appearance with Columbus was an unfortunately brief one as he left the game after only two innings. Southisene’s first at-bat went quickly as he was retired on three straight strikes, being finished off by a slider that he chased well out of the strike zone and put a poor swing on. Columbus stayed busy on offense and were able to get Southisene another plate appearance in the second inning, and this is when the game turned towards concerns for Southisene. A sinker ran up and in on Southisene and hit him on his right wrist, with Southisene immediately jogging down the third base line in pain while the trainers checked him out. Southisene did stay in the game to run the bases as Luke Waddell drove in a run, but between innings was pulled from the game and did not come out in the top of the third inning.
Columbus would ultimately suffer little from the loss of Southisene in this game. Julio Robaina pitched well, controlling the Trash Pandas with his sinker to force a bunch of ground balls, and after five innings Columbus had extended their lead out to 5-1. Columbus only had one extra base hit in this game, but when they got runners on they were usually able to take advantage, and wild pitching from Rocket City gave them plenty of chances to get on. The Clingstones dipped into their bullpen in the seventh inning and ran out a string of their best relievers, but yet still almost let the game slip from their grasp. Isaac Gallegos allowed a triple to the first batter he faced in the seventh inning, but despite solid contact and a shaky frame overall he was able to strand a runner in scoring position and allow only one run. The game grew even closer following a two-run home run in the eighth inning off of a hanging Anderson Pilar slider, and it was time for Tyler LaPorte in the ninth inning to try to lock down the game. LaPorte kept his incredible work from the season going. He allowed a two out walk but locked down the save regardless, and is working on a span of seven straight scoreless outings. That walk was the first baserunner LaPorte has allowed since his first appearance in July, ending a streak of 22 batters in a row retired with 15 of those coming via strikeout.
Swing and Misses
Julio Robaina – 12
Anderson Pilar – 6
(46-48) Rome Emperors 7, (44-53) Hub City Spartanburgers 3
- Alex Lodise, SS: 0-5, .000/.000/.000
- John Gil, 2B: 1-4, BB, .241/.343/.371
- Eric Hartman, CF: 3-5 2 RBI, .274/.361/.519
- Owen Carey, RF: 2-2, 2 HR, 3 BB, 3 RBI, .276/.350/.497
- Aiven Cabral, SP: 4 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, 2.84 ERA
With Southisene moving up Alex Lodise finally got the much-needed call to High-A, where his debut didn’t go off so well. In his first at bat he hit a hot shot over to short that was scooped up by the drawn in infield to rob him of a hit, though an errant throw to home meant he would reach base anyways and help bring home the first run of the game. Owen Carey followed that up with a long home run to right field, putting Rome up 3-0 and getting Lodise his first run scored in his second stint with Rome. Lodise otherwise didn’t have an impact on the offensive end, with poor contact and one strikeout in his other at bats. The same can not be said of Owen Carey, who had a dream night on the field. After that first inning home run Carey drew two straight walks, and the Spartanburgers would have been smart to walk him in his fourth plate appearance. Carey hit a drive into the power alley that cleared the deepest part of the park, drifting over the 411 sign for his second home run of the game and eighth in 55 games this season. In his next appearance Hub City took no such chances and walked him for the third time on the evening. While this showing certainly boosts his stock (and his walk rate) it has been an altogether electric month of July for Carey. He has a .949 OPS and has hit safely in eight of his last nine games, including three triples, 13 RBI, and five walks to five strikeouts in that span. Carey’s greatness overshadowed a solid three hit evening from Eric Hartman, who has had much less success this month. Pitches to hit have been harder to come by as Hartman’s reputation has grown, and this is the first multi-hit game of the month for him. However he has done a great job of being patient and has 17 walks this month to keep his OBP at an impressive .367.
After putting up four runs in the first two innings the game was never in doubt, especially with Aiven Cabral pitching as well as he has at any point this season. Cabral was in his typical strike-throwing form but was also missing more bats than usual, utilizing his slider well to all hitters while also mixing in well-located fading changeups to lefties. Cabral has 10 whiffs and only 47 pitches through four innings, giving him a chance to put up some seriously interesting numbers, but a two hour rain delay ended his day prematurely and kept him from adding to his win total for the season. The bullpen had to cover five innings, something almost never seen in Cabral starts, and David Rodriguez stepped up to the task with three awesome innings of work. Rodriguez struggled a little bit with control at times but was able to force weak contact and finish at bats when he got to two strikes, and he covered three innings with only one run allowed. The bullpen mopped up the final two innings with ease, and Jarret Whorff had his best outing of the year and closed the game with three strikeouts in a scoreless ninth inning. Cabral had that hiccup with his command in his last outing that is really dragging all of his numbers at High-A down, but overall even with the promotion he has improved his performance over what he was doing in Augusta. He’s sharpened up the usage of his slider quite a bit and is getting a lot more use out of his secondaries late in counts, and even though he won’t be even an average swing-and-miss guy he has two major league quality secondaries that he can command, which should take him a long way in the system.
Swing and Misses
Aiven Cabral – 10
David Rodriguez – 6
Jarret Whorff – 4
(53-44) Augusta GreenJackets 8, (50-47) Columbia Fireflies 5
- Luis Guanipa, CF: 0-2, 3 BB, .301/.361/.454
- Conor Essenburg, RF: 3-3, 3 HR, 2 BB, 5 RBI, .278/.418/.550
- Nick Montgomery, C: 1-3, HR, BB, .195/.336/.390
- Davis Polo, SP: 7.2 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 3.59 ERA
It’s rare that a two home run performance isn’t the headline offensive game, but Conor Essenburg stamped his name on that title by going one further, hitting three home runs and driving in five RBIs as he provided most of Augusta’s offense. Home runs were, in fact, all of Augusta’s runs in this game. Junior Garcia tagged a two-run shot in a four-run second inning (more on that to come), and Nick Montgomery had a solo home run an inning later that opened up a 6-0 lead for Augusta. Essenburg did everything else. In the first inning he got a 91 mph fastball on the inner half, and Essenburg has plenty of bat speed to get to that and hit a high home run out to left field to open the scoring. An inning later Luis Guanipa drew one of his three walks in the game (!! only mildly less-surprising than Essenburg’s home runs) extending the inning for Essenburg to make even more of an impact. Essenburg got another low velocity fastball on the inner corner and hit it even further, sending one high up in the left field apartments for his second home run of the game to extend the lead out to 5-0. For most of the rest of the evening Columbia didn’t play around with Essenburg. He only saw one strike in his next two plate appearances and drew two walks, though it wasn’t likely that was the intent of the Fireflies as they just walked 12 batters in this game. The game got a little bit too close late in the evening, with Columbia drawing the deficit to 6-4 with the top fot the order due up in the eighth inning for Augusta. Guanipa drew a four pitch walk, and after falling behind 1-0 on Essenburg the Columbia pitcher grooved one to try to get a strike. Essenburg lined it out to right field for his third home run of the game. Right now it seems like anything thrown to Essenburg is a mistake pitch. In his last three games he is 9-14 with five home runs, a double, and three walks, and overall he has eight home runs in just 62 at bats this month. Essenburg has shown that consistency at the plate may be his real limitation, because he has shown this season that when he gets on hot stretches he is almost impossible to stop. That’s his third multi-home run game this season, and he has a 1.045 OPS in his past 44 games.
Not to be outdone, Davis Polo was absolutely brilliant. As good as Davis Polo has been since mid-May this is the best he has been in any game this year, producing 7 2/3 innings of dominant work with a season-high 21 whiffs produced (his second game of 20+). Against a lineup with five left-handed hitters Polo was able to lean on his plus changeup and he was locating everything well, and at times was just overwhelming hitters with that pitch. Polo can get into spells where he overthrows his fastball and misses badly with command, and that was some of the issue in the at bat he allowed a home run during in the third inning. Otherwise though he did a solid job of keeping him mechanics in sync and not pulling off to the first base side, and was able to get ahead of hitters with his fastball and keep them having to guess which of his three pitches he was going to attack with next. What’s impressive with Polo is how willing and able he is to attack with his slider and changeup early in counts. Pitching backwards can be a struggle with pitchers at the lower levels and make them more predictable to hitters, but Polo is unafraid of using his secondaries to get ahead of hitters and buy strikes early in counts, and that’s just a testament of a guy who has three pitches that are able to get outs at this level. Polo adding weight and velocity would serve his profile quite well, but the attributes for a back-end starter are already apparent when he is on the mound and his consistency in the the past two months has him more than deserving of a call up to High-A.
Swing and Misses
Davis Polo – 21
