The Minor League Baseball season is gradually coming to a close. The high minors will roll on a little while longer, but Rookie ball is over and A-ball playoffs are about to begin. While the Yankees’ Low-A Tampa Tarpons have been eliminated, the High-A Hudson Valley Renegades are very much alive with the final regular season series afoot — and it’s shaping up to be an exciting one, to boot.
The Renegades have been dominant for most of the season with a 76-49 record, and they’ve been especially hot
in the second half at 38-23. This leaves them trailing only the Pirates’ affiliate, the Greensboro Grasshoppers, who have been Minor League Baseball’s best team this year with an 87-40 mark. Notably, Greensboro missed the chance to clinch a playoff spot in the first half of the season by finishing a mere half-game behind the Mets’ Brooklyn Cyclones, who are just 25-36 in the second half but locked into the South Atlantic League postseason regardless.
This leaves Hudson Valley and Greensboro fighting for the last North Division playoff spot and the right to face Brooklyn in the postseason, and it just so happens the two teams are facing off against each other in the final week of the regular season for a six-game set. Greensboro entered the week with a 3.5-game lead over Hudson Valley, meaning the Renegades were tasked with going either 6-0 or 5-1 in this series to clinch a playoff spot. As difficult as this may be against a team with a record as outstanding as Greensboro’s, the Pirates did recently promote the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball, Konnor Griffin, to Double-A two week ago, weakening the Grasshoppers’ lineup considerably and giving the Renegades a fighting chance.
The Renegades’ recent momentum has been driven by an exciting group of young players, some recently promoted and others who were just drafted back in July. The 22-year-old Dillon Lewis was promoted midway through the season and has impressed in his 71 games with Hudson Valley, posting a .239/.328/.449 slash line with 13 home runs, a 10.9/20.2 BB/K%, and 127 wRC+. Juan Matheus is off to a hot start at the level since his own promotion with a 14.4/19.2 BB/K% and 116 wRC+. The ‘Gades have also welcomed two members of the 2025 draft class, Kaeden Kent and Core Jackson. The latter has posted league-average production in his first 88 professional plate appearances, slashing .216/.330/.324 with an 11.4% walk rate. Meanwhile, Kent has struggled in his first taste of pro ball, but he had an excellent game on August 27th (5-5 with a home run, a double, and three RBI) that could help turn his fortunes around.
On the mound, Kyle Carr has been a consistent force as the Renegades’ ace with a 1.96 ERA in 119 innings. Carr’s walk-to-strikeout ratio is less impressive than you’d expect for someone with those numbers (21.7 K%, 9.8 BB%) but that hasn’t mattered much as he’s been dominant down the stretch. Like Griffin though, the Renegades will be without Carr, as he just got his own promotion to Double-A.
The series began in New York on Tuesday night in promising fashion with a 4-0 Renegades victory. Brandon Decker took the ball for Hudson Valley and tossed five shutout innings with six strikeouts, two hits allowed, and three walks. Greensboro’s starter, Carlson Reed, had no control over his pitches and walked five batters in just 1.2 innings. The Renegades put up two runs in the second inning when Reed walked Matheus with the bases loaded and Lewis drove in a run while reaching safely on a fielder’s choice. They added their other two runs in the bottom of the eighth when Engelth Urena doubled home a run and then scored on an RBI single by Connor McGinnis.
This was the exact start Hudson Valley needed to this series, but they still had their work cut out for them. They subsequently did themselves no favors last night, as they were held to just four hits by righty Khristian Curtis and company. 2024 second-rounder Bryce Cunningham was pulled after needing nearly 50 pitches to record just six outs, and the Hudson Valley bullpen allowed six runs en route to a 7-1 loss. Now, the Renegades’ backs are truly up against the wall.
It’s still shaping up to be an exciting finish. The odds might be against them, but the Renegades do control their own destiny. If they win tonight, they’ll live to fight another day. If they then win tomorrow, then the pressure will really be on Greensboro to wrap it up on Saturday; otherwise, it’s a winner-take-all regular season finale on Sunday. A potential Subway Series-esque matchup would await them in the playoffs against Brooklyn in a best-of-three.
The high-leverage situation will be a great experience to test the fortitude of Hudson Valley’s young talent, and should be a fun viewing experience for Yankees fans before the MLB regular season approaches its own conclusion in a few weeks. Come out to the yard in Dutchess County this week if you can!
