Jake Washer – Picture by Todd Johnson
Exciting games are starting to become a thing in the Cubs’ system. From Iowa to Tennessee to South Bend to Myrtle Beach, it was a fun afternoon of baseball including some late inning heroics in South Bend.
The day began simply enough with Iowa starting at noon and the other three affiliates playing at one. As a result, I thought the Hitter of the Day was wrapped up by about quarter after one when Robel Garcia hit his second home run of the day . That didn’t work out so well for Robel by the end of the afternoon, but that’s not really his fault.
The Hitter of the Day turned out to be a Jake Washer of South Bend who went three-for-four with two home runs. Washer hit a solo shot early in the game and then walked it off with a three run bomb to left in the bottom of the ninth.
When Washer came out of college in 2019, I was really excited as he was known for his power at ECU. He did that hit very well in Eugene that summer but then had a challenging year last year at South Bed. But today, he was the man! In addition to his two home runs, he also shut down the running game of Beloit by gunning down two base stealers early in the game.
There were other good performances besides Washer and García as Chase Strumpf and Chris Morel hit home runs in Tennessee. Pete Crow-Armstrong went 3-for-5 while James Triantos went 2-for-5 and has left the Mendoza line far behind. We also saw good games from Fabian Pertuz and Luis Verdugo, who is now hitting .297. That happened pretty quickly.
On the starting pitching side of things, it was an uneven day but Robert Gsellman won today’s honor as Starting Pitcher of the Day. He went five innings and only gave up one run and struck out three. He lowered his season ERA to a nice 0.69.
As for the Reliever of the Day, North Side Bound has pretty much fallen in love with Riley Martin of first place Myrtle Beach and I don’t know if it’s possible anymore for another guy to win the award on the day that Martin pitches. Today, Martin struck out seven in three innings giving him 17 Ks in two outings (7.1 IP) this week. He should be in uniform for South Bend in the Quad Cities on Tuesday.
The tip of the cap also goes out to Sheldon Reed who struck out the side in the ninth for the save for Myrtle Beach.
In addition, Danis Correa was assigned to Tennessee today and had a bit of a rough outing in his debut even though he was hitting 99 and 100 on the gun.
I will be back tomorrow with “The Breakdown“ of what happened on the field this week and we will also have our players of the week and our team of the week. See you then!
