A rough 1-3 day for the affiliates with just a Lexington win at the minor league levels.
HR Roll Call – Orlando Calixte (1)
BP KC Hitter of the Day – Cody Jones 3-4 3b, 2 RBI
BP KC Pitcher of the Day – Foster Griffin 5 IP 4 H 3 ER 1 BB 8 K 5/0 GO/FO 76 P 57 strikes
New Orleans Zephyrs 3 Omaha Storm Chasers 0
The Chasers had their five-game winning streak snapped on Monday due to a solid effort from the New Orleans pitching staff. Starter Jose Urena got things going by limiting the Chasers to just a Travis Snider single and walk over his five innings of scoreless pitching. Relievers Jo-Jo Reyes and Cody Ege wouldn’t allow the Chasers to get any closer to scoring as singles by Whit Merrifield and Cheslor Cuthbert in the 6th and 7th innings would be closely followed by double plays. A single in the 8th by Tony Cruz would result in another victimless crime. In the end the Chasers offense would go nine innings without a single runner reaching second base thanks to three double plays that they hit into. With a lack of offense, starting pitcher John Lannan had little to no room for error and the three runs on eight hits by the Zephyrs offense were enough to credit him with his first defeat of the year. Reliever Malcom Culver was able to put together his first scoreless appearance of the season, working three innings with five strikeouts.
Malcom Culver 3 IP 2 H 0 R 0 BB 5 K
Travis Snider 1-2 BB hitting .391
Cheslor Cuthbert 1-4 K, E (5)
Midland RockHounds 4 NW Arkansas Naturals 3
The Naturals got a little home cooking served to them in game 2 of their series with Midland. After a back and forth game in which the teams traded a Midland lead to a Naturals tie a couple of times, the RockHounds mounted a rally in the 7th the put pitcher Yender Caramo on the ropes. With two on and no out the RockHounds tried a bunt to move things along, but Caramo forced one out on a throw to third. Next a single to right-field looked like a lead in Midland’s favor but a strong throw from newbie rightfielder Orlando Calixte to homeplate to gun the runner down kept the game tied. Game tied, two on and two out a low liner from Jaycob Brugman looked destined to break the tie but a dive by Bubba Starling kept it all knotted up. That was until the umpires who originally ruled it an out got together and changed their ruling into a trip and a run scoring single. Manager Vance Wilson disagreed with the ruling and was ejected, but that would change nothing other than giving him an early shower on the evening. The Naturals wouldn’t mount much of a rally in the final two inning to drop their fifth consecutive game.
Raul Mondesi 0-4 K, E (5), SB (7)
Alec Mills 6 IP 5 H 3 ER 1 BB, 3 K
Frank Schwindel 2-4 R hitting .333
Frederick Keys 5 Wilmington Blue Rocks 1
The top four hitters in the order reached base six times in sixteen plate appearances Monday while the 5 thru 9 hitters combined to reach one time in eighteen tries. Tough to mount an offense with that type of output from a lineup as evidenced in just back to back first inning doubles by Ryan O’Hearn and Elier Hernandez allowed Wilmington to dent the scoreboard in game one of this three game series. Relief pitcher Josh Staumont worked just one inning but was quite effective, striking out two against just one walk. It was the first time this season that Josh was limited to just one inning of relief, interesting thing to watch if this is a switch over to his likely one inning role.
Corey Toups 1-4 2b (3)
Elier Hernandez 1-3 2b, BB, RBI hitting just .152
Zach Lovvorn 5 IP 5 H 4 R 3 ER 2 BB 6 K
Lexington Legends 7 Asheville Tourists 5
While many of the starting pitchers have struggled in the Royals organization, lefty Foster Griffin is off to a decent start in his second go round at Low-A Lexington. The lefty tossed four clean innings in his third start of the year with just a 3rd inning hiccup that featured four consecutive singles and 3 runs to break up his start. In the game Griffin set a new career high with 8 strikeouts while earning 16 swinging strikes on the evening. In addition to the 8 K’s, Griffin earned his customary five groundouts to zero flyouts, coming into the game he had a near 2/1 GO/FO ratio. To backup Griffin, the Legends offense put together runs between the 3rd and 5th inning with a single run in the 3rd, three more in the 4th and a pair in the 5th to take a 6-3 lead. A Cody Jones triple in the 8th added an insurance run while Jacob Bodner worked a clean 9th for his third save of the season.
Chase Vallot 2-5 2b (4), R, RBI
Jacob Bodner 1 IP 1 BB 0.00 ERA in 3 app.
Mike Hill 1-2 2b, 2R, 2BB