AAA: Round Rock 4, Reno (ARI) 7
Round Rock: 8 hits, 6 walks, 7 strikeouts
Opponent: 10 hits, 5 walks, 9 strikeouts
Record: 27-30, 7.5 GB
SP Ty Blach: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 SO, 52 P / 40 S, 2.84 ERA
RP Marc Church: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 1 SO, 4.50 ERA
CF Evan Carter: 1-4, .207/.314/.379
LF Dustin Harris: 2-5, .208/.327/.219
Evan Carter grounded out hard against lefty Jake Rice and struck out against lefty Kyle Nelson.
Emiliano Teodo was a mess, again, allowing six runs in 0.2 innings on four hits (three of them hard liners) and two walks. After the opening homestand, I wondered if Teodo might get the call if needed. Probably not, but he certainly acted ready. Since then, only two of his nine outings have followed the desired course. In those nine appearances, Teodo has pitched 11 innings, walked 16, and allowed 17 hits and 19 runs. Teodo has almost always been deeply inconsistent, and even his best stretch (May and June of 2024) had its fair share of walks and hit batters, but finding a previous period matching this one requires some deep digging and cherry-picking (and mixing of metaphors).
AA: Frisco 6, at Amarillo (ARI) 2
Frisco: 10 hits, 5 walks, 9 strikeouts
Opponent: 6 hits, 4 walks, 9 strikeouts
Record: 31-19, 1.5 G up
SP Trey Supak: 5.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 5 SO, 85 P / 52 S, 5.45 ERA
LF Aaron Zavala: 3-5, .263/.423/.406
1B Abi Ortiz: 1-3, BB, .250/.343/.438
RF Josh Hatcher: 2-4, 2B, .274/.295/.439
Frisco took five of six at Amarillo and allowed 4.3 runs per game in park with an average of about 5.7. The Riders batted .276/.350/.486 and scored an even six per game. Mission accomplished. That terrific week netted them exactly 0.0 games in the standings, as trailing Midland also won five of six. In the three series concluding the first half, both teams will spend two weeks on the road, and Midland will host Frisco in the second series. Midland has a 59-run differential advantage.
Sebastian Walcott walked twice.
Hi-A: Hub City 3, Winston-Salem (CHW) 1
Hub City: 5 hits, 2 walks, 7 strikeouts
Opponent: 7 hits, 3 walks, 11 strikeouts
Record: 27-24, 0.5 GB
SP Jose Gonzalez: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 SO, 79 P / 59 S, 2.50 ERA
SS Casey Cook: 1-3, BB, .178/.270/.233
1B Arturo Disla: 1-3, HR (6), BB, .263/.325/.430
RF Yeison Morrobel: 1-3, HR (2), .187/.274/.307
Jose Gonzalez missed a career-high 21 bats en route to his best outing of the season. Now 23, Gonzalez is in his fifth pro season (meaning a 40 decision in a few months, unlikely but possible) but didn’t make a strong impression until last year at low-A. Down East.
Hub City’s remaining first-half schedule is no picnic: six at Greensboro (34-16), six against Wilmington (21-30), three at division-leading Bowling Green (27-23), which has series against the two worst teams in the league prior to meeting the Spartanburgers.
Lo-A: Hickory 13, at Delmarva (BAL) 5
Hickory: 14 hits, 6 walks, 6 strikeouts
Opponent: 7 hits, 4 walks, 10 strikeouts
Record: 26-24, 2.5 GB
SP Anuedis Mejia: 0.2 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 SO, 34 P / 19 S, 6.46 ERA
RP Josh Sanders: 3.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 SO, 0.00 ERA
SS Chandler Pollard: 1-4, BB, HBP, SB (23), .267/.355/.323
1B Pablo Guerrero: 3-6, .232/.308/.362
CF Yeremi Cabrera: 4-6, SB (15), .233/.374/.308
3B Rafe Perich: 3-4, 2B, .227/.351/.351
Hickory won with another barrage of early runs including eight in the 3rd. The Crawdads also won despite another less-than-one-inning outing from the starter, as too many plate appearances of 7-8 pitches (even the successful ones) forced out Aneudis Mejia.
Hickory has a favorable schedule for the final 15 games of the first half: six against Columbia (26-25), six at Myrtle Beach (18-31), three against Delmarva (20-31).
Dominican Summer League
It began today. Rangers Red won 23-9, aided by 17-year-old 2B Elorky Rodriguez’s 4-for-6 performance with a homer, double, walk and steal. Rodriguez was Texas’s priciest signing of the early 2025 period until the recently inked Seong-Jun Kim of South Korea. Rangers Blue defeated the Yankees Bombers 10-8.
Rangers Minor League History, 2007-2024
The 9th-best full-season team for the Rangers during 2007-2024 was the 2011 low-A Hickory Crawdads.
Record: 79-58 (40-28 first, 39-30 second)
Run-differential record:80-57
Component record: 77-60
The offense was remarkably stable, with the top nine hitters accounting for 82% of the team’s plate appearances. Future Major Leaguers were SS Jurickson Profar, 2B Odubel Herrera, 3B Christian Villanueva and C Tomas Telis. Hickory had the league’s best offense (after adjusting for park); they weren’t especially powerful but led by far in average and OBP. The team’s best hitter was 1B Andrew Clark (.311/.422/.482), who would virtually disappear the next April.
Hickory had the league’s third-best run prevention. Nick Tepesch led the squad with 138.1 innings and would reach the Majors, joined by Luke Jackson, Roman Mendez, Justin Grimm and Ben Rowen. The best starter was 19-year-old Cody Buckel. Ryan Rodebaugh logged 14 saves.
On June 16, I saw Jackson’s sixth-ever full-season start in person, a 5-1 defeat of the Gary Sanchez-led Charleston RiverDogs (pics below.) The win put the Crawdads atop the division by percentage points. They’d trailed by 4.5 games just two weeks earlier but would win 13 of 15 down the stretch to claim the first-half title.
In the playoffs, Hickory was matched against Florida-affiliated Greensboro, which finished with a nearly identical record. The Crawdads would fall in two straight, 5-4 (in 15 innings) and 2-0. In the opener, Hickory took leads in the 10th, 13th and 15th, only to give them back. Some guy named Christian Yelich tied the game in the 13th with a double and ended it with a homer, scoring Marcell Ozuna both times. Hickory managed only three baserunners in the final game.
