AAA: Round Rock 6, Reno (ARI) 0
Round Rock: 8 hits, 6 walks, 12 strikeouts
Opponent: 2 hits, 0 walks, 12 strikeouts
Record: 27-29, 7.5 GB
SP Dane Dunning: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 SO, 72 P / 50 S, 5.12 ERA
RP Patrick Murphy: 2.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO, 1.50 ERA
DH Evan Carter: 0-3, BB, .205/.316/.386
SS Cody Freeman: 2-4, BB, .304/.351/.446
1B Blaine Crim: 1-3, 2B, BB, .292/.359/.538
Evan Carter faced young Arizona lefty Yu-Min Lin three times. He fanned on a sweeper his first time up, but he then scorched another sweeper 107 off the bat directly to the right fielder and grounded hard to short. Against a righty, he later hit a 101 MPH fly tracked down near the wall by Cristian Pache and walked. All told, a pretty swell 0-for-3 night.
Dane Dunning has back-to-back scoreless outings, and, not coincidentally, his two best outings for swinging strikes, 13 last week and 14 last night. His slider cracked 80 MPH only once but he generated nine misses on 12 swings.
AA: Frisco 11, at Amarillo (ARI) 6
Frisco: 11 hits, 6 walks, 9 strikeouts
Opponent: 13 hits, 1 walk, 9 strikeouts
Record: 30-19, 1.5 G up
SP Mitch Bratt: 6 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 SO, 81 P / 54 S, 1.89 ERA
1B Abi Ortiz: 2-4, HR (8), BB, .249/.337/.439
CF Cam Cauley: 2-5, 3B, SB (16), .240/.304/.389
RF Josh Hatcher: 2-4, BB, .269/.291/.421
Frisco’s starters have allowed two or fewer runs in four straight starts in a tough environment (although Kohl Drake’s two came in just 0.2 innings). Mitch Bratt missed only five bats but got the Poodles to gawk at a season-high 20 called strikes.
Hi-A: Hub City 1, Winston-Salem (CHW) 4
Hub City: 5 hits, 0 walks, 9 strikeouts
Opponent: 4 hits, 3 walks, 10 strikeouts
Record: 26-24, 1.5 GB
SP DJ McCarty: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 HBP, 5 SO, 76 P / 46 S, 7.04 ERA
RP Wilian Bormie: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO, 1.98 ERA
3B Gleider Figuereo: 1-4, HR (9), .236/.313/.427
Early in the season, the 1st inning was Hub City’s bugbear. Lately it’s the 9th. Two walks and an error loaded the bases, and with two out, reliever Seth Clark threw a short grounder wide of first. That and a subsequent double plated four. Gleider Figuereo’s solo homer cut the margin in the bottom half.
Lo-A: Hickory 10, at Delmarva (BAL) 2
Hickory: 9 hits, 12 walks, 14 strikeouts
Opponent: 5 hits, 3 walks, 13 strikeouts
SP Caden Scarborough: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 SO, 62 P / 50 S, 4.01 ERA
RP Grant Cherry: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 SO, 4.50 ERA
SS Chandler Pollard: 3-6, 2B, .268/.350/.325
RF Maxton Martin: 2-6, 2B, .265/.313/.432
DH Pablo Guerrero: 1-3, 2 BB, .222/.302/.357
Hickory led 10-0 when the game was suspended, not 10-5 as I said yesterday. The Crawdads coasted from there. Hickory scored eight on the 1st on just four hits, all by Chandler Pollard and Maxton Martin. Caden Scarborough missed a career-high 13 bats.
Lo-A: Hickory 2, at Delmarva (BAL) 3 (7)
Hickory: 4 hits, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts
Opponent: 8 hits, 2 walks, 9 strikeouts
Record: 25-24, 2.5 GB
SP Mason Molina: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 6 SO, 80 P / 47 S, 4.06 ERA
3B Rafe Perich: 1-2, BB, .213/.344/.333
Delmarva chipped away Hickory’s slender lead with singletons in the 4th, 5th and 6th. Chandler Pollard grounded into two double plays. Despite a lower grounder rate than last year, he’s up to seven for the season, three more than the entirety of 2024.
Today’s Starters
AAA: TBD
AA: Supak
Hi-A: Gonzalez
Lo-A: Mejia
Rangers Minor League History, 2007-2024
The 15th-best season by a position player during 2007-2024 was by Mitch Moreland in 2009.
Moreland will appear in this feature more than once, so for now let’s just say he was drafted in 2007 and had a respectable 2008. Moreland began 2009 in Bakersfield, probably the worst facility in affiliated ball at the time, and certainly worst compared to the next stop on the organizational ladder. With that extra incentive, Moreland batted .341/.421/.594 with 19 doubles and eight homers in 43 games for the Blaze.
Promoted to Tulsa in late May, Moreland went 3-4 with a double in his first game and batted .326/.373/.488 with another 19 doubles and another eight homers in 73 games. Moreland spent most of his time in Bako at first but manned right much more often at Frisco. His position tended to depend on his teammates; he would outrank someone like Chad Tracy but not Joey Butler.
Moreland continued to hit well in AAA in 2010 and was in the right spot in late July, when Texas traded Justin Smoak, and Chris Davis batted .189/.267/.245 in 16 games as Smoak’s replacement. He entered the Majors essentially a finished product, rarely great but never worse than just good enough for the front office to focus its efforts elsewhere.
MORE Rangers Minor League History, 2007-2024 (catching up from when I lost power)
The 14th-best position-player season was Joey Gallo’s 2013.
I’ve already covered Gallo’s 2016 (#18 on the list), and we’re not done with him after today, so I’ll ignore 2014 and after. Gallo had already made a name for himself by breaking the Arizona League record with 18 homers as an 18-year-old in 2012.
Assigned to Hickory in 2013, Gallo was the most prolific homer-hitter on the most prolific homer-hitting team in any Rangers-affiliated league during 2007-2024. (I’ll probably be discussing that later as well.)
Despite missing an entire month and playing in only 106 of 139 games, Gallo led the team, the league, the organization and all of minor league ball with 38 full-season homers (plus two more in Arizona on rehab). Gallo also stole 14 bases against just one failure, and his 48 walks were third on the team. When the season ended, he was still just 19 years old.