Minor League Bites Bits
The minor league season is quickly drawing to a close. It seems impossible but it is so. The good news is that five of the Dodgers affiliates will extend their season a bit by competing for the league championship. Those five affiliates are AZL Dodgers Mota, Ogden Raptors, Great Lakes Loons, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, and Tulsa drillers. End-of-Season All-Stars to date: Some leagues have not yet announced the All-Stars. Twenty-year-old
The minor league season is quickly drawing to a close. It seems impossible but it is so. The good news is that five of the Dodgers affiliates will extend their season a bit by competing for the league championship. Those five affiliates are AZL Dodgers Mota, Ogden Raptors, Great Lakes Loons, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, and Tulsa drillers.
End-of-Season All-Stars to date: Some leagues have not yet announced the All-Stars.
Twenty-year-old right-hander, Adolfo Ramirez of the DSL Dodgers Lasorda was named an AZL all-star. Over 49 innings pitched he allowed but 24 hits while posting a 0.73 ERA and a 0.67 WHIP. He struck out 61, walked 9 and twice had a scoreless five-inning start. He has been assigned to the Raptors to finish out the season.
John Shoemaker was named the Midwest League Manager of the Year and 19-year-old third baseman Miguel Vargas, now with the Quakes and hitting up a storm, was named a Midwest League End-of-Season All-Star.
“Shoe” has guided the Loons to the playoffs each of the past two years. This season, Great Lakes had its best first half in franchise history with a 43-24 record and a .642 win percentage, winning the first-half Eastern Division title to earn a playoff berth.
Vargas, hit .325 with 5 home runs and 45 RBIs in 70 games and 280 at-bats with the Loons. His batting average is still the highest of any Loons’ player this year.
Vargas is also the California League Player of the Week for the week of August 19-25. His stat line for the week is .556/.571/.926, 6 games, 15-for-27, 5 games, 2 doubles, 1 triple, 1 home run, 8 RBI, 3 runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts.
The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes have 3 End-of-Season All-Stars: Devin Mann (2B), Jeter Downs (ss) and Donvan Casey (LF).
The 23-year-old Casey posed a triple slash of .270/.335/.509 with 20 home runs, 65 RBI and 20 stolen bases. He was a Mid-Season All-Star.
Devin Mann was a Mid-Season All-Star, a Player of the Month for June and a Player of the Week. The 22-year-old missed some time with injury but posted a slash line of .277/.359/.497 with 18 home runs and 60 RBI.
Jeter Downs, 21, is now with the Tulsa Drillers as is Donovan Casey. Downs line with the Quakes reads .269/.359/.507 with 19 home runs, 75 RBI and 23 stolen Bases.
The OKC Dodgers had no End-of-Season All-Stars but former OKC manager Damon Berryhill was the International League Manager of the Year with the Gwinnett Braves.
The Pioneer League All-Stars have not been announced and it is expected they will be well represented. They lead the league in 11 offensive categories. They are fifth in strikeouts. Pitchers Alfredo Tavarez (2.98) and Jeronimo Castro (3.25) are first and third in the Pioneer League in ERA respectively with 60 and 61 innings pitched respectively.
Third baseman Sauryn Lao was named the Pioneer League Player of the Week for the week of August 19-25. Just turned 20 his stat line was: 409/.458/.727, 5 games, 9-for-22, 1 double 2 home runs, 6 RBI, 6 runs, 2 walks, 6 strikeouts.
Another Player of the Week for the Dodgers was 20-year-old left-hander Robinson Ortiz of the Loons. Over 2 games, one in relief and one as a starter he went 2-0 with an ERA of 0.64, 14 innings pitched, with only 7 hits allowed. He walked 2 and struck out 13.
Meanwhile, the Gavin Lux call-up wait continues.
DC’s 10th Inning
Tuesday’s Scores:
DSL Dodgers – season ended
AZL Dodgers Mota 3 – DSL Rangers 5
The AZL season has now ended for the Dodgers. Mota’s Dodgers lost their play-off game 5-3 to the Rangers in the one and out format.
Ogden Raptors 5 – Rocky Mountain Vibes (Milwaukee) 2
In the completion of a suspended game from August 20th the Raptors won 5-2 . On the mound, Elio Serrano picked up where he left off in the start of the suspended game, completing eight innings while allowing just two runs – one earned – on five hits. Mitchell Tyranski pitched a perfect ninth for his first save. Andy pages had a home run in both halves of the game.
Ogden 3 – Rocky Mountain Vibes (Milwaukee) 4
The Raptors scored three runs on sacrifice flies but left eight runners on base and came up short 4-3 in their final game against the Rocky Mountain Vibes in the 2019 regular season.
Great Lakes Loons 12 – Lansing Lugnuts (Toronto) 9
Not a pitcher’s duel at 12-9 although 20-year-old Edward Cuello extended his string of consecutive scoreless winnings to 13 since joining the Loons.
Justin Yurchak and Luke Heyer both had 3 hits. Yurchak in his last 10 games is hitting .465 with 13 runs, 3 home runs, and 7 RBI. After a slow start with the Loons in July, he is now hitting .305.
Ranch Cucamonga Quakes 4 – Lake Elsinore Storm (SD) 1
Wills Mongomerie has had an up and down season. This one was an up with 6 strong innings in a 4-1 win, his 8th win, on one and one run.
Jeren Kendall and Dillon Paulson both had 3 hits. Kendall hit his 19th home run.
Tulsa Drillers 8 – Armarillo Sod Poodles (SD) 4
The Drillers with their 8-4 win have taken 2 straight from South Division-leading Amarillo. Ryan Mosely and Nolan Long combined for 3 innings of one-hit relief.
Connor Wong recorded three hits for the fourth straight game. He also kept his hitting streak alive, running it to 11 straight games. He is hitting .338 since joining the Drillers on July 15. Errol Robinson also had 3 hits and is hitting .367 in August. Jeter Downs had 2 hits, one a 2-run home run.
OKC Dodgers 5 – Iowa Cubs 2
Logan Bawcom pitched 6 innings of one-run ball on 3 hits in the 5-2 win.
Edwin Rios hit his 28th home run, Kyle Garlick hit 2 making it 22 on the season, while Gavin Lux hit his 13th AAA home run to go along with 13 at the AA level.
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Discussion (88)
Disagree, not disagreeable
This is why we need catchers that can throw at base stealers.
Blaming Kenley for that is moronic. If CT3 catches the ball which he should, game’s already over.
Sloppy game but the Dodgers won.
Magic Number 9
It’s got nothing to do with any confidence we have in Kenley. Tonight it was simply bad luck that resulted in a gift double. No one has argued that Kenley is automatic, and most of us don’t have near the confidence in him that we used to. But tonight it was mostly bad luck. But no doubt that the old Kenley may have struck out that hitter,, and deprived him of the opportunity for a bloop hit.
And by the way, it looked to me that Sadler served up a cookie to that last hitter. Lucky that thing wasn’t hit out.
Sadler looked pretty good closing this one out! He deserves a seat at the table!
Regarding stuff, Kenley is very average now as closers go, perhaps even below average. Yeah that is worrying.
I don’t know why people keep wanting to make excuses for Jansen. Yes, it was a bloop double, sometimes those happen. We won the game on an infield single, a stolen base, and an error. Some closers would still have shut them down that ninth inning. Some closers would not throw a wild pitch with one out, two strikes on the batter. You can’t blame Jansen for everything, but you can’t look for excuses, either.
His last outing before this was the game where the Yankees loaded the bases against him, albeit on a couple of slow grounders. after a clean single. Before that, he had a couple of blown saves in the two weeks prior. Several other teams have better closers, that is a fact. We are going to keep putting him out there, because apparently we feel we have no other choice, after not trading for one. If we want to keep doing what Roberts now is rather strangely doing, putting his most effective reliever, Kelly, in for the 6th, then one of the lesser relievers for the 7th, then the rather erratic Baez for the 8th, then Jansen for the 9th, we are probably going to blow more leads. We can afford to now, with a 20 game division lead, but we can’t afford to in the playoffs. Spin the wheel and let it ride, is I guess our only option with this bullpen. Tonight we led 4-2 in the 8th, and ended up going extra innings, and this was against a team which is under .500, and whose best hitter, Tattis, is not playing.