Felix Stevens – Picture by Stephanie Lynn

I am at the point where I have come to expect the unexpected when watching minor-league baseball. Heading into tonight, I had a pretty good idea of how things were going to go and they did not turn out that way at all. Some were for good. Others, not so much.

 Jackson Ferris Is Human

The Cubs 19-year-old left-handed phenom did not make it out of the second inning tonight. Ferris threw 56 pitches in just 1.2 innings and was removed from the game. He was missing bats, but he was also walking guys. In the first, he gave up a run on a wild pitch by himself. In the second, he was cruising along and then all the damage and walks were done with two outs in the second. For the night, he gave up four runs and walked four as well as strikeout four. He allowed two hits. His ERA is now at 2.87 on the year.

Felix Stevens Is Not Human and Is the Hitter of the Day

The Pelicans big slugger hit his fourth home run of the week and 11th on the year to tie him with Owen Caissie for the system lead. Stevens also now has 30 RBI on the year and is hitting .301 with a .963 OPS on the season. He is ready for South Bend. However, I don’t think Buddy will let him go until they clinch a playoff berth.

Despite Ferris giving up four runs, Myrtle Beach would come back and score 5 in the third and go on to win 7-5. Koen Moreno pitched in and out of trouble for three innings, and he did not allow a run. He struck out four and walked four, which is about par for the course for him.Baby steps.

Power Outage.

Manny Espinoza had his longest start of the year for South Bend. He went five innings, did not allow an earned run and struck out four. Lansing‘s first two runs came in as a result of an error by Ed Howard. But South Bend‘s offense continues to sputter as they only managed five hits on the day. Two of them were by Howard, who is now hitting .385 after his first week back at South Bend. Yohendrick Pinango went the other way, which is a good sign to drive in South Bend‘s only run. He also had two hits on the night as South Bend lost 3-1. 

Picture of the Day

Hot Take of the Day

Pete Crow Armstrong is ready to go to Iowa. He’s going to continue to be on a tear for the next couple weeks because he’s not going to Iowa until Tennessee has clinched a playoff spot. Currently, the Smokies are a half game back after losing 5-2 tonight to Rocket City. There are some who would like to see PCA walk more, and he has, but right now he is just tearing the cover off the baseball this month. Tonight, he went 2-for-5. Coming into tonight,  over the last 10 days he was hitting .300 with a .447 0BP and an OPS of 1.147 while hitting three home runs with eight RBI. And that all went up tonight.. 

The Smokies didn’t muster much else in terms of an offense except for Haydn McGeary who went 2-for-4. 

As well, reliever Hunter Bigge was promoted from Tennessee to Iowa today, Good for him!

Time to Flip the Tables. 

Iowa was pretty much manhandled by Saint Paul in the first two games of this series to widen their division lead over Iowa to 3.5 games. Then all of a sudden, the I-Cubs won on Thursday night, and they won again on Friday night, and they won again tonight. That offense just keeps thundering away. It’s just so deep. The pitchers really can’t take an at bat off as there are no easy outs. 

Starter Riley Thompson had one of his better starts of the season as he went 4.2 innings with three strikeouts. The only damage he gave up were two solo home runs. Ryan Jensen also pitched well striking out 4 in 1.2 IP in relief. Iowa won 9-3.

Stats of the Day

Jared Young has been tearing the baseballs up. Over his last 20 games, his slash line (courtesy of Brad@ballswok) is .347/.446/.557/1.003 with a 155 wRC+. That’s quite a run!