Memphis Redbirds 8, Toledo Mud Hens 1 (box)
A day after scoring 13 runs the day before, the Toledo Mud Hens had just six hits in an 8-1 loss, ending the series with the Memphis Redbirds tied at three games apiece.
Max Anderson and Andrew Navigato each had two hits, Ben Malgeri drove in the only Mud Hens run of the day and Tomas Nido scored that run after reaching on a double in the eighth. Toledo had baserunners in each of the first three innings, but there was no follow-up to any of those moments.
Carlos Pena was strong in his seventh start
of the year, but he only went three innings after going two on Wednesday. The pitching situation in Detroit means Toledo has to figure things out on the fly, so bullpen games are happening in Triple-A, too.
Pena didn’t miss a ton of bats in this one, but he’s not giving up hard contact either. The result is outs and an ERA down to 0.90 over 29 1/3 innings this year. He only gave up two hits today and didn’t allow any runs.
Tyler Mattison was first out of the bullpen, and he was even better than Pena. Two innings, one hit, one walk and five strikeouts. He landed five first-pitch strikes in eight tries and had a whiff rate of 44% (7/16) today.
The sixth inning is when the trouble started. Yoniel Curet was wild as wild can be, hitting two batters and walking a pair. The second hit-by-pitch scored the first run of the game and got him yanked. That’s really as bad as it can get.
Eric Silva cleaned up Curet’s mess the best he could, but a second run still scored on a groundout. Silva got through the seventh, walking a batter in each inning, but everything else was fine until the eighth came around. Silva gave up a leadoff double, threw a wild pitch and allowed a third run to score on a single from our old friend Bligh Madris. A two-run homer from Ramon Mendoza made it 5-0 and got Silva pulled.
Matt Seelinger took over and walked the first batter he faced, but a strikeout and double play ended the inning without any more damage. Jack Little got the ninth and gave up three more runs. Rough day for the pitching staff, besides Pena and Mattison.
Anderson: 2-4
Navigato: 2-3, 2 2B (4), K
Pena: 3.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, BB, 2 K
Mattison: 2.0 IP, H, 0 R, BB, 5 K
Coming Up Next: The Mudhens are in Omaha next week, starting at 7:35 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Harrisburg Senators 5, Erie SeaWolves 3 (box)
Erie couldn’t get back in the win column on Sunday, dropping the Mother’s Day game against the Harrisburg Senators, 5-3. Still, it’s a 4-2 week for the SeaWolves.
Erie scored first thanks to an error and two singles. Thayron Liranzo got the RBI. That was all the scoring for the SeaWolves until the eighth, though.
As most Sundays go in the minors, the SeaWolves pieced together a bullpen game on the mound, throwing five pitchers, with none going more than two innings.
Luke Taggart got the start and went 1-2-3 in the first. Duque Hebbert was next. He worked around a two-out base hit and a walk in the second, but he had no such luck in the third. Cayden Wallace tripled in Elijah Nunez, who reached on a one-out walk, Sam Peterson drove in Wallace with a sac fly, and back-to-back homers from Kervin Pichardo and Caleb Lomavita made it 4-1.
John Stankiewicz came in to get out of the third, but he gave up another run with a pair of singles and a wild pitch. The fourth went better for him, retiring the side after allowing a leadoff single.
Wandisson Charles got the fifth and sixth. He faced the minimum despite giving up a leadoff single in the latter frame. A double-play cleaned things up nicely.
Moises Rodriguez got the final two innings for Erie. He gave up a hit in each inning, but his three strikeouts were enough to make us forget about that. Nice work from the backend duo today.
Both of the SeaWolves’ extra-base hits came in the eighth. John Peck led off with a double, and Andrew Jenkins homered him in. That cut the four-run deficit in half, but it was too little, too late.
Liranzo: 2-3, RBI, BB, K
Jenkins: 1-4, HR (4), 2 RBI, K
Coming Up Next: The SeaWolves are at home against Richmond next week, starting Tuesday at 6:05 p.m. ET.
Dayton Dragons 8, West Michigan Whitecaps 4 (box)
West Michigan lost game No. 14 in a row on Sunday, 8-4, against the Dayton Dragons, capping off another sweep.
If you’re wondering, at least three minor league teams have lost more games in a row in recent memory. The Rocket City Trash Pandas had 16 last year, the Altoona Curve lost 15 in a row in 2024 and the Rochester Red Wings went 0-19 in 2022.
The silver lining is that Bryce Rainer had an incredible night at the plate. He walked four times — seeing 30 pitches over those plate appearances — and hit his second home run in the first inning. Rainer has struggled a bit since coming off an injury, but this is the guy every prospect junkie knows him to be. He’s made some adjustments to his posture, standing a little more upright now with higher hands, although it’s still a pretty busy load. That should open up the pull field more for him, as it did with this blast.
The 2-0 lead didn’t last long, though, as Dayton scored a run in the second and third innings off Gabriel Reyes. It was a bit of a mixed bag for Reyes today. Seven hits and two walks aren’t good, but six strikeouts and only allowing the two runs are.
West Michigan responded in the fourth with a run. Rainer walked to open the frame and was eventually driven in by Juan Hernandez. Reyes came back out in the fifth with a lead, but he couldn’t get through the inning to qualify for the potential win. Seth Chavez took over with two on and one out and got a double play ball right away.
Chavez wasn’t as good in the sixth. A leadoff double is always a bad omen. Dayton put up a crooked number, scoring three runs on as many singles. West Michigan manager Rene Rivera got tossed after the third one for arguing balls and strikes. It was a horrible call on 0-2, and Rivera took a mound visit to yell at the umpire a bit. He was ejected before he even got to the mound, so he got his money’s worth.
Ethan Sloan took over with the score at 5-3 in favor of Dayton. He was nearly perfect through 1 2/3 innings, allowing one baserunner on a fielding error. CJ Weins relieved Sloan in the eighth and gave up a two-run home run to double the deficit.
West Michigan scored in the bottom half of the eighth on a bases-loaded walk, but Dayton got the run right back in the ninth with a solo homer. Maybe they’ll figure out a way to win next week…
Rainer: 1-1, HR (2), 2 R, 2 RBI, 4 BB
Reyes: 4.1 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K
Coming Up Next: The Whitecaps are on the road next week against the Great Lakes Loons, starting Tuesday at 11:05 a.m. ET.
Lakeland Flying Tigers 8, St. Lucie Mets 3 (box)
The Lakeland Flying Tigers took Sunday’s game against the St. Lucie Mets, 8-3, to secure a 4-2 series win.
Carson Rucker got the scoring going in the second, hitting a solo shot to right-center field. It could have been a bigger inning with Javier Osorio singling and Edian Espinal reaching on an error, but Osorio was caught stealing third base. Espinal made up for it in the fourth with the first of two RBI singles. He drove in Rucker, who walked to open the inning.
Meanwhile, Charlie Christensen was dealing for four innings. He gave up just three hits and didn’t allow a runner to reach third. He looked like he had more in the tank, too, with three strikeouts in his final frame.
Andrew Pogue took over for Christensen in the fifth and worked around a two-out single. A leadoff walk in the sixth came back to bite him. A deep single brought the runner around, but the defense made sure to get Randy Guzman trying to stretch out a double.
St. Lucie briefly tied the game up in the seventh on a Chase Meggers single. Another base hit from Simon Juan almost gave the Mets the lead, thanks to a throwing error, but Meggers was tagged out at home on a good throw from Anibal Salas.
Sergio Tapia gave Lakeland the lead back immediately on a solo homer to lead off the bottom of the seventh.
Rucker walked later in the inning with the bases loaded to make it 4-2. Osorio singled in two more runs to double that lead, and Espinal hit his own two-run single to make it 8-2. (Well, that escalated quickly.)
Jatnk Diaz came in for the eighth with the idea of closing things out, but he allowed too many baserunners to get the job done. Diaz walked four batters and gave up two hits over 1 1/3 innings. He left the game after St. Lucie scored a run in the ninth, and Eliseo Mota struck out both batters he faced to end the game.
Rucker: 1-2, HR (2), 3 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB, K
Christensen: 4.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K
Coming Up Next: Lakeland is on the road next week in Clearwater, starting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. ET.
