James Triantos – Picture by MLB Pipeline

It was an upside down kind of day. Two pitchers who normally start wound up finishing the last five innings in Iowa and South Bend. A guy who normally only throws three innings wound up throwing five scoreless today. And I am starting to come up with some plans of how I’d like to do this daily type of post next year. I will save those notes for The Weekly on Sunday. As for today, let’s get to it!

Magic Number of the Day

South Bend’s magic number is down to 5. Beloit was winning 14-4 at press time in the 7th inning. Yeah, let’s roll with 5.

Pitch of the Day

Hayden Wesneski threw one of the nastiest sliders I’ve seen the sheer tonight for Iowa. It’s clear to see in this one video just exactly what the Cubs on him when they sent Scott Effross to the Yankees.

Pics of the Day

Stephanie Lynn spent the better part of last week in Myrtle Beach taking pictures. She’s slowly been Releasing them over the last few days. Today, we get to see a couple of cool shots of Pedro Ramirez.

Web Gems of the Day

Yes, there are two of them tonight. The first one is by Delvin Zinn who made a nice play going to his left for Tennessee. The second one is kind of funny but it’s a ground her back to Porter Hodge who kicked it and wound up catching it himself and then throwing to first.

Relievers/Starting Pitchers of the Day

The lines blurred between relievers and starters today and these awards are going to reflect that. I don’t care which one gets the starting pitcher of the day or which one gets the reliever of the day. I Porter Hodge, Hayden Wesneski, and Riley Thompson all through five scoreless innings today. Which ever Award you want them to get, then you can pick it out for yourself.

Porter Hodge – He struck out six in five innings as a shut down Lansing in relief of wade Miley. Lansing look like they had no idea how to hit him whatsoever. I still find it hard to believe that he is just 21 years old and dominating at High-A

Hayden Wesneski – He only allowed one hit on the day and struck out just three, but it was weird seeing him pitch the final five innings in the relief of Anderson Espinosa. I’m not sure what’s going on there, but his slider was just nasty today.

Riley Thompson threw five scoreless for the Smokies and allowed just two hits and only struck out three while walking too. Is his deepest start of the year and he threw 77 pitches, 48 of them for strikes. It’s actually kind of exciting that he’s finishing the year fully stretched out and will be ready to go in 2023. Where he ends up to start next year is still up in the air. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing him in Arizona in the fall league since he’s just now getting stretched out and has only thrown just 42 innings this year. He’ll probably make two more regular season starts before the playoffs. So we’re looking somewhere close to 50 innings. Going to Arizona Could get him close to 65 or 70 depending upon how he’s used.

Debut of the Day

Michael Arias had a rough go in his debut for Myrtle Beach. He gave up three runs in the first inning but he also struck out three. It’s easy to see why as he gets a lot of horizontal movement on his baseball. It’s actually kind of crazy!

Dinger of the Day

It’s fun to see Triantos hit dingers. I’m expecting him to hit a lot more next year when he’s in the Midwest League than he did in pitchers’ parks all throughout the Carolinas and Georgia.

Hitter of the Day

James Triantos – He had himself day going 2-for-3 in the game one with the home run. In game two, he drove in two runs in the first inning to give him three on the night and he wound up going 3-for-7 with three RBI on the day.

I will be back in the morning with the August All-Star team!