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In all honesty, not much happened down on the farm this weekend, as least as it pertains to significant prospects. So we'll shake things up a little bit, start by highlighting a position players at each affiliate, look at a handful of the starters who went, and then a few quick hits.
- Buffalo: Rowdy Tellez hit a walkoff home run Friday, his second hit of extra inning after starting 0-5 in regulation. And then had to suffer a reporter asking if it felt good to get a win. No?
- New Hampshire: Danny Jansen continued his hit parade, going 5 for 9 with 3 doubles, all hard line drives. That runs his line in AA to .438/.471/.688.
- Dunedin: Juan Kelly broke out of a cold stretch by hammering St. Lucie pitching for 3 doubles and a home run as part of a 5 for 12 weekend with a walk and 2 strikeouts.
- Lansing: Vladdy Guerrero Jr punished South Bend pitching over the weekend, going 7 for 11 with a pair of doubles and a walk
Chris Rowley has moved into the NH rotation with Francisco Rios on the DL, so is working with a limited pitch count. Nonetheless, he went 5.1 shutout innings on 66 pitches, allowing just 3 hits and a walk. With just one strikeout and 5 whiffs, he wasn't overpowering, but piled up weak contact. Of 18 balls in play, 14 were on the ground (78%) with 1 popup. I continue to be intrigued by Rowley.
Sean Reid-Foley went a season high 6 innings and 93 pitches, and has now thrown more innings in his last three starts (16) than his first six (15). His start has its ups and downs, as he allowed 4 runs on 5 hits (one home run), with 4 walks against 6 strikeouts. He still isn't where one would want to see him, working 90-94 on the Reading stadium gun and with control issues, did he get hit double digits in swinging strikes with 11. After his second walk leading off the 2nd, Reid-Foley settled into a nice run for a couple innings. In the later innings, he struggled again with control while his contact shifted mostly to the air and he got squared up a lot.
Jordan Romano pitched 4.2 shutout innings (he left the bases loaded and was charged with two inherited runs), but it took him 96 pitches to do so as only two of 19 batters saw less than 4 pitches. After a couple early walks he seemed to have found enough consistency to compete, taking a no hitter into the 4th. That was broken up with a hard single, and he couldn't finish the inning walking the last two batters.
Angel Perdomo struggled with control and didn't make it out of the 4th, finishing with a line of 4 runs over 3.2 innings, 3 walks against 5 walks and just 1 strikeout. He allowed a couple hard hits in the first, and his salvation thereafter was that while he was issuing free passes all over the place, he didn't allow any other hard contact. It's been awhile since he had a dominant start, and at some point you have to think about putting him in the bullpen.
Denis Diaz rebounded from having no control last weekend to a solid start, allowing 1 run on 1 hit over 5 innings, with 2 walks against 6 strikeouts. His contact profile was excellent as well, with 8 on the ground and 2 being popouts.
Some quick hits: Conor Fisk turned in another solid outing; Shane Dawson got hammered; Tom Robson had a nice inning of relief (just look past the two wild pitches that resulted in a run); and Zach Jackson had a scoreless inning with 2 strikeouts most notable for allowing his first baserunner since April 25th.