The week started off with a wild set of games on the Atlanta Braves farm system. The Gwinnett Stripers, led by the rehabbing Spencer Strider, managed to get no-hit but still come out with a win in the game. Meanwhile Rome took the opposite path, obliterating a good Greensboro pitching staff with six home runs on the way to a blowout win. Leading the charge there was Eric Hartman, who broke a streak of games without an extra base hit by totalling three home runs as part of a 5-5 performance.
(14-8) Gwinnett Stripers 2, (11-11) Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp 0
Box Score
- Jim Jarvis, SS: 0-2, HBP, BB, .380/.495/.532
- Nacho Alvarez, DH: 0-2, RBI, .204/.313/.241
- Spencer Strider, SP: 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 0.00 ERA
- Rolddy Munoz, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 0.00 ERA
Miami’s Braxton Garrett is still looking to earn his way back into the Marlins rotation after missing all of last season, and so far in four Triple-A games he has been making his best case. He carried early season dominance into another ridiculous start against the Gwinnett Stripers, throwing a complete game with no hits allowed. However, Garrett had a single rough inning where he got wild and as a result took the loss despite eight brilliant frames. Gwinnett had no real answer for the entire game on offense, but Brewer Hicklen and Kim Jarvis were both hit by pitches to open up the sixth inning, and that opened a narrow opportunity in a game that scoreless. Garrett then uncorked a slider that somehow narrowly missed hitting Sean Murphy, but did skip all the way to the backstop for a wild pitch. As the ball settled near the wall Garrett failed to cover home, and Hicklen never stopped running and was able to sprint home and score from second base for the first run of the game. Garrett would fight back to strike Murphy out, but in that time also made an errant throw to second base on a pickoff attempt that allowed Jarvis to move to third. This gave just enough opportunity for a Nacho Alvarez sacrifice fly to bring home a second run, and the Gwinnett pitching staff dominated en route to a one-hit shutout. This was helped by having Sean Murphy behind the dish, who caught six innings and went 0-3 at the plate.
For as good as Garrett was he was matched by the output of the Gwinnett Stripers staff, especially Spencer Strider who turned in a terrific rehab outing. Strider dominated with 15 whiffs and eight strikeouts on 44 swings, and save for a single in the fourth inning he was untouchable. The Jumbo Shrimp were aggressive out of the zone in this game and Strider made them pay for that, and though his command wasn’t pinpoint he did a solid job of elevating his fastball and keeping his slider down and glove side. He checked all of the boxes for this stage of his rehab assignment until his velocity started to slip a bit in his final inning of work.
Following Strider’s outing the rest of the bullpen was just a shade short of perfection. Victor Mederos walked the first batter he faced in relief, then he and the rest of the bullpen retired 14 of the last 15 hitters with only an error allowing another runner to reach base. Rolddy Munoz kept his sensational start to the season with his first save, striking out the side in order in a perfect ninth. It’s only been seven outings but Munoz has thrown more strikes during this stretch of play than he has in nearly any other span of his career, and hitters are not able to handle his plus slider. He got whiffs on all four swings at the slider in this outing, and was helped by the Jumbo Shrimp continuing to go after breaking balls below the zone.
Swing and Misses
Spencer Strider – 15
Rolddy Munoz – 4
Victor Mederos – 4
Javy Guerra – 1
(9-7) Columbus Clingstones 5, (7-9) Birmingham Barons 8
- Patrick Clohisy, LF-CF: 3-5, 2B, 3B, .348/.400/.565
- David McCabe, DH: 1-5, HR, 2 RBI, .265/.419/.653
- Owen Murphy, SP: 2.2 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 5 BB, 2 K, 7/31 ERA
- Luis Vargas, RP: 2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 3.38 ERA
It’s been two very disappointing starts out of the past three for Owen Murphy this season as he has not been able to command the ball well. Between 2024 and 2025 Murphy walked only 18 batters in 71 1/3 innings, but has now walked 14 in 16 innings this season. This has come with a small boom in home runs — he allowed two in this game — and he seems to be in need of a reset already. All of his pitches are all over the place, and though he shows flashes of hitting the top of the zone with his fastball he is just not consistent enough to get outs. On the positive end of the spectrum his breaking balls are showing improved shape and bite over last season on the occasions he does land them, and if/when he can dial in his location they should add more dimension to what was an extreme fastball-heavy approach in prior seasons.
David McCabe continued his insane production this season with another long ball, tagging a fastball the opposite way for a two run home run. McCabe was a bit behind the sinker in the bottom of the zone, but had the pure pop to muscle one out for his third home run in the past four games and sixth overall this season. All six of McCabe’s home runs this season have come from the left side, continuing the trend of power output that matches his swing characteristics.
We’ve also seen great play from Patrick Clohisy since missing a couple of series early in the season. He has hit safely in all five games since returning to the lineup last series, and had by far his best game of the season with a couple of extra base hits and three total in this game. Clohisy has really turned into an interesting player to watch since his swing adjustments last season, showing much more gap power in his time in Double-A while also not seeing a significant increase in swing-and-miss. He is another in a line of outfielders the Braves have done a great job scouting and developing as defensive center fielders, and so far has hit all of the markers to trend towards a bench bat ceiling. A few extra walks would really help the profile out at the moment, though it’s still just a 46 game sample at Double-A split across an offseason. Lizandro Espinoza suffered an injury early in this game, and though he stayed in on the defensive end he would eventually have to leave the game. Espinoza made a great play to track down a fly ball near the wall, but crashed hard into the padding and appeared to injure his right leg in the process. He was slow and limped away from the wall, allowing the tagging runner to score from second base, and went down on the outfield grass holding that leg. While he did finish out the inning defensively he did not come out in the third inning, and his status moving forward is unclear. While it’s never good to see a player injured it would be especially unfortunate for Espinoza, who has really come into his own this season. His contact and approach is finally catching up to the athletic attributes and he has been fantastic at the plate this season, showing off with power, speed, and defense to put himself in some real prospect conversations. He’ll be one to keep a close eye on whether he hits the injured list or stays active to see how the injury affects what has been great progress over the last season and some change since the Braves grab him in the Rule 5 draft.
Swing and Misses
Owen Murphy – 8
Samuel Strickland – 5
(7-9) Rome Emperors 15, (11-5) Greensboro Grasshoppers 6
- Isaiah Drake, LF: 2-4, HR, 2 BB, .233/.324/.400
- John Gil, SS: 3-6, HR, .208/.317/.377
- Eric Hartman, CF: 5-5, 3 HR, BB, 5 RBI, .310/.365/.724
- Cedric De Grandpre, SP: 0.2 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 5.84 ERA
- Logan Samuels, RP, 3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K, 5.87 ERA
It’s hard to have a much better evening than Eric Hartman had on Tuesday. In the top of the first inning Hartman hit a tank down the right field line, turning on an high fastball and crushing one that just snuck fair down the line for his fourth home run of the year. This gave Rome an early lead, but the offense was not even close to slowing down for Hartman. The next prospect to make an impact was John Gil, who led off in the third inning with a missile of a home run to center field. Gil got a sinker right over the heart of the plate on the very first pitch and was sitting back on it, and he made ear-rattling contact on the ball as it got way out of the park in a hurry. One pitch later and Hartman was right back up to his old tricks. He saw another sinker out over the plate and it took about three steps for the right fielder to give up on the ball. With that hit Hartman tied his 2025 total with his fifth home run in only 14 games, but with an entire game left to go there was no reason for him or the Emperors to slow down their production. The Emperors really put it away with a five run explosion in the fourth inning, an inning led off by the fifth team home run of the game.
Isaiah Drake turned on a high fastball and launched another home run out to left field, breaking up a rough stretch at the plate for him. Since hitting two home runs in the opening series Drake has only gotten one extra base hit in the past two weeks, and was 2 for his last 16 at the plate entering this game. He put the slump to bed with two hits and two walks in this game, and turned around after a really disappointing end to last week’s games. He has been cutting back slowly on the strikeouts and if he can make more impact with his contact like he did in this game the path back to a great numbers is well in play. His swing this season has continued to improve and the pop on the pull side is coming along nicely, making him one of the breakout players to watch as the season drifts towards May. Hartman didn’t have another nuke up his sleeve for his third at bat, but he did sneak a single into center field which was followed by another hit from Dixon Williams. Cody Miller officially made it a route with an opposite field bomb off of the scoreboard, his second home run of the season, driving in three runs and making it 10-3 in favor of the Emperors. The offense slowed down quite significantly after that point, with the next big inning resulting from a bevy of walks to the top of the order, until Hartman got one more turn at the dish in the ninth inning. To this point Hartman had put up an incredible statline with four hits, two home runs, and a walk, but just for kicks he had one more exciting moment up his sleeve. This time Hartman got a slider in the strike zone, and even though he was a bit out on his front foot he showed off his tremendous strength. He turned it around and carried it out to right center field and just over the top of the wall for his third home run of the game and now career high sixth of the season.
An up and down start to the season for Cedric De Grandpre continued as he failed to get out of the first inning in this game. He really struggled to command the ball and walked three batters, eventually eclipsing the 30 pitch mark and getting yanked with the bases loaded. Jacob Kroeger had the task of escaping the trouble and he immediately issued a walk, though he was able to get a strikeout to keep the game tied. Kroeger had a solid outing, but it was really Logan Samuels who was the active pitcher in getting Rome over the hump. Samuels pitched three brilliant innings in the middle frames with four strikeouts and no walks or runs allowed, allowing the Emperors to cruise down the stretch and never worry about their big early lead.
Swing and Misses
Isaac Gallegos – 9
Logan Samuels – 7
Cedric De Grandpre – 5
(10-6) Augusta GreenJackets 7, (8-8) Columbia Fireflies 6
- Tate Southisene, 2B: 1-3, 2B, 3 BB, .246/.434/.456
- Nick Montgomery, C: 0-3, 2 BB, .323/.463/.581
- Luis Guanipa, CF: 2-4, RBI, .357/.371/.536
- Logan Forsythe, SP: 3.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 1.08 ERA
- Aiven Cabral, RP: 5 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 3.21 ERA
Augusta and Columbia played tug-of-war in this game, trading the lead back and forth until the GreenJackets were able to lock up in extra innings. They trailed 2-0 and didn’t have a hit after three innings, but in the fourth inning had the top of the lineup up to bat with a chance to get things started. Tate Southisene jumped on a first pitch fastball and hit a liner down into the left field corner for a leadoff double, sparking the first scoring chance for Augusta. Luis Guanipa turned the opportunity dial up with one out, waiting out a slow breaking ball and shooting it the other way for a base hit. Guanipa got picked off at first base, but stayed alive on the bases long enough for Southisene to score from third base and cut the deficit in half. The next inning Dalton McIntyre and Juan Mateo led off with singles, and while Augusta couldn’t turn that into a bigger inning they did manage a run on a fielder’s choice. Southisene was once again a spark for the offense in the sixth inning when he led off the inning by drawing a walk. He stole second base and advanced on a wild pitch, putting him in position to come home to score on a sacrifice fly from Guanipa.
Augusta had their first lead of the game, but it was a short-lived experience for them. The pitching staff had an unspectacular day, starting with Logan Forsythe on the mound. While Forsythe managed to limit damage to one earned run on a home run thanks to him getting five ground outs, overall he had a bit of a busy day allowing baserunners and his control never quite settled in. Aiven Cabral had an opportunity for a long relief appearance and he did cover five innings for Augusta, but he didn’t miss bats and a lot of the contact against him turned into hits and runs. He allowed a tying home run to the first batter he faced after getting the lead, and he settled into a pattern of never managing that shutdown inning. Augusta was gifted a run in the top of the seventh thanks to poor control from Fireflies reliever Kyle DeGroat, but Cabral came right back and allowed three hits and two runs in the bottom of the inning to swing the lead over to the home side. Dalton McIntyre’s two run home run in the eighth inning was a huge boost that swung the momentum over to the Augusta side, but Cabral gave up a leadoff single in the next inning.
That turned into a stolen base and a game-tying single, and the 6-6 score would last for both sides until extra innings. Caden Merritt was the hero for Augusta as he netted a go-ahead single in the top of the tenth inning, but Augusta was once again in need of a shutdown inning with Jaylen Paden relieving Cabral. Paden made things tighter immediately by issuing a walk, putting the winning run on with no outs in the inning. Paden gave up a grounder over to first base, too slow for Cooper McMurray to turn it into a double play, and the tying run moved over to third base with two chances for Columbia to tie the game. Paden gave up a sharp liner to right field that was medium deep, a position that should have allowed the speedy pinch runner at third base to score, but the runner made a mistake and didn’t tag properly, rescuing the GreenJackets for the moment. Paden forced a lazy fly out to right field from the next hitter, and Augusta escaped with a narrow win in extra innings.
Swing and Misses
Logan Forsythe – 7
Aiven Cabral – 5
