Farm Report: Lewis/Rooker scorching, Twins give up 12 runs

Triple-A: Rochester Red Wings 3, Norfolk Tides 2

Rochester got some nice pitching on a night the MLB boys, um, did not. Aaron Slegers went 7.1 and fanned six, then Mason Melotakis was perfect to finish the game. Hits aplenty for the Red Wings, including two apiece by Kennys Vargas and C Mitch Garver. One of Garver’s was a solo dong, making him worse than Chris Gimenez. ByungHo Park also went bang, his 10th of the season.

Former Twins alert! For the Tides, OF Logan Schafer went 0-3, and Jason Wheeler pitched 2.1 scoreless.

[Box Score]

Double-A: Chattanooga Lookouts 1, Birmingham Barons 0

Why, it’s just raining pitching all up in here! Dereck (son of Pudge) Rodriguez threw one of his best games yet, allowing only two hits in seven full frames. Aussie Todd Van Steensel and SG Nick Anderson kept things rolling from the bullpen.

Uber-prospect SS Nick Gordon drove in the winning run late. Not-son-of-Pudge, DH/1B Jonathan Rodriguez, and 2B Ryan Walker both had doubles. Chattanooga only had five hits on the night, and the pitchers made sure this was enough.

[Box Score]

High-A: Ft. Myers Miracle 9, Dunedin Blue Jays 6

Deja vu, Miracle fans! Friday night’s game featured a big first inning capped by OF Brent Rooker’s homer. Well — Saturday’s did too! Except that he played first base this time. (We’ll let that slide.) LF Jaylin Davis had two measly singles. Roid up, Jaylin!

RHP Eduardo Del Rosario did his best to imitate the big-league Twins, getting yanked after four runs in four innings. Williams Ramirez, Alex Robinson, and magnificently-named Michael Theofanopoulos combined to give up only one more while amassing 10 strikeouts. Bullpen dealin’ some heat, right there.

[Box Score]

Low-A: Cedar Rapids Kernels 9, Quad Cities River Bandits 1

So, you may have heard, top 2017 draft pick SS Royce Lewis got promoted yesterday. How’d he do? Mixed bag. He had four hits, but he did strike out once. So, not perfect. RF Shane Carrier and LF Jimmy “OwMyKnee” Kerrigan each had a single and long dong.

Not that the Mean Corn needed all this hitting. LHP Anthony Marzi went six strong if slightly wild innings, giving up the opposition’s lone run. He did walk three hitters. Goofier was RHP Max Cordy; he faced 11 guys and walked five! RHP Hector Lujan, whose team photo looks like he just found out his wife is pregnant with quintuplets, was perfect in the ninth.

[Box Score]

Rookie League: Johnson City Cardinals 12, Elizabethton Twins 5

I guess if your team name is “Twins,” you give up twelve runs on August 12th. Plenty of bad nights to go around. RHP Moises Gomez had the worst. In his one inning, he faced nine baby Cardinals. Six of them scored. His fellow Venezuelan, RHP Jose Martinez, was the only hurler to emerge from this mess unscathed.

Too bad, because the Baby Twins found creative ways to score. They had five runs on five hits, none of them a long ball. IF Jose Miranda had the right to tag up after his triple. Basically, a lot of smart baserunning by these younguns; CF T.J. “Hooker” Dixon managed to draw a balk at third base.

[Box Score]

Do you have a picture or pictures you took of tractors, farm animals, land, or other equipment you’d like to see us use for a future farm report? We would love your submissions and happily give you and/or your farm full credit and a shout-out.

Please e-mail myjah at Maija.Varda@gmail.com if you are interested, and include the name of who took the photo (and their permission) so we may give the proper photo credits. If Fillmore uses the photo, though, he’ll just steal it and give you nothing, that’s the kind of guy he is.

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