Miguel Amaya – Pic by Micah Manuel/Tennessee Smokies

Today’s word of the day is oof. It pretty much describes everything that happened tonight in the Cubs minor league system.

1. The Iowa Cubs played this afternoon and started the oof parade with a 10 to 5 loss to Indianapolis. Caleb Kilian only lasted three innings and gave up six runs. 

2. South Bend was all set to play Beloit tonight with the lead for the west division on the line. A pop-up thunderstorm just poured down rain on the field before game time. It only rained for 10 minutes but they were unable to get the tarp on the field before the damage was done. Oof again.

3. Tennessee was leading Birmingham 4-1 in the second inning when a hit ball came back into the infield and when the ball got back to pitcher DJ Herz, he promptly threw the hit ball out of play into the dugout like he’s done his whole career. The only problem was the Home Plate umpire ruled that time had not been called. As a result, Herz’s throw was a two base throwing error and made the game 4-2. After that call, Michael Ryan, the skipper of Tennessee, came out in blasted umpire with a parade of F bombs and other expletives that I can’t put on here because this is a family website. But let’s say that he let that umpire have it. DJ Herz was rattled and was never the same. And the official scorer charged him for seven earned runs even though 6 runs came after the two base error. Giant oof.

It was at this point that I just started doing some school work and would occasionally check the scores the rest of the night. I had seen enough.

Still, I’m going to hand out some awards for today just because I’ve done it for every other day this season.

Starting Pitcher of the Day.

This goes out to Didier Vargas of Myrtle Beach who went five innings and struck out five and allowed just two runs in Myrtle Beach’s loss to Down East. Vargas has played at three levels this year and has had some success at Arizona and Myrtle Beach.

Reliever of the Day

 it was a rough day for relievers as well. The two Iowa relievers who came in after Killian each gave up a couple of runs. The guys who came in after Vargas and Myrtle Beach gave up a couple runs, the same for Samuel Reyes in Tennessee. However, Ben Hecht of the Smokies had his best outing since coming back from TJS. He threw 1 inning and struck out 2. Zac Leigh made his Tennessee today and did the same. They will share today’s award.

Dinger of the Day

Bryce Windham hit two balls really hard today. This was the one that left the yard.

Hitter of the Day

Miguel Amaya went 3-for-4 for Tennessee and drove in two runs. He raised his batting average over 25 points on the day to .234.

Tomorrow is a new day and I’m hoping that all four teams get to play tomorrow and that they do much better than today. Every once in a while, a system just has one of those nights that you point your mouse to the X on the tab and hit click.

I will be back in the morning with my ranking of the Cubs minor league position groups. This is a yearly thing I do. Last year‘s top group was the outfield. We will see if they can repeat.