Pablo Aliendo – Pict by Todd Johnson

School ended around 12 o’clock today for me. I went out for lunch and then as soon as I got home, nap time ensued for the next two hours. So now, all my attention has turned to baseball for the next 10 weeks.

Let’s get started on what happened tonight.

Ferrisday

This is starting to get a little ridiculous. Jackson Farris went three more innings today for Myrtle Beach. He gave up one hit and struck out for. He threw 43 pitches and 27 were for strikes. I hate to say this, but the 19-year-old is not really being challenged with a 0.82 ERA in his first 11 innings. I’m not trying to rush him to South Bend, but if this continues through the middle of June, he should be in Indiana when July begins.

Birds Stay Hot

The Pelicans won their fourth game in a row over Fayetteville and are now slowly starting to make their way up the standings in the South Division of the Carolina League. They are now four games behind Columbia with about 20 to play. Tonight, they won 6-1 in part due to Ferris, but Erian Rodriguez struck out five in 3.2 innings and Luis Rujano pitched 2.1 innings and struck out five and gave up the only run in the game. That’s some pretty is it solid pitching!

Yeison Santana, who was called up at the beginning of the week, went 3-for-4 with 2 RBI and Moises. Ballesteros went 2-for-5 with a two-run single. Those two guys provided and most of the offense along with Rafael Morel, who went 2-for-4.

South Bend Bats Struggle Again

I still found it stunning that South Bend’s offense has been scuffling of late and yet they were still in first place in a tie with Cedar Rapids at the time of this post. They only provided three hits in support and that was not enough as they lost 3 to 1 to Dayton.

Starting Pitcher of the Day

The night belonged to South Bend starting pitcher Connor Noland who threw five scoreless innings. He only needed 61 pitches to do so as he was pounding the zone with 43 of them. He probably could’ve done another inning if the Cubs let them. As well, He struck out six.

Comeback of the Day

For the first two innings of the game, the Birmingham Barons in the Tennessee Smokies traded a single run each inning as it was tied at 2 after 2. In the sixth and seventh frames, Birmingham scored five runs to make it 7-2. The Smokies tried coming back in the bottom of the eighth but only plated two to make it 7-4. In the top of the ninth, the Barons added two more to put the distance at five runs at 9-4, and then all hell broke loose in the bottom of the ninth.

It’s fun to listen to Broadcaster Mick Gillispie of the Smokies talk about this team when they come from behind to win games. But those of us that followed most of these players last year at South Bend know that that’s just how they are. They never see themselves out of the game and tonight they came from five runs back in the ninth to win 10 tonight after Pete Crow Armstrong hit a ball down the line to drive in two runs. 

It’s weird when you look at the totality of it because outside of Pablo Aliendo’s night at the plate, there really wasn’t a lot going on for the team until the ninth inning. Strangely enough, the inning began with a Pete Crow-Armstrong strikeout out followed by a series of singles and walks, a run double by Aliendo and Crow-Armstrong came up to the plate again to walk it off.

Pablo Aliendo Dinger of the Dday

Ironically, the kid did it again hitting his seventh home run on the year.

Amaya Getting Hotter

The Iowa Cubs lost 7-4 tonight, Miguel Amaya went 2-for-3 with two RBI, including his first home run has an Iowa Cub. He’s now hitting .375 in Iowa to go along with a 1.068 OPS. He’s not making it easy on the Cubs to keep him down.