Box Scores
AAA: Round Rock 3, Albuquerque (COL) 7
Round Rock: 6 hits, 2 walks, 9 strikeouts
Opponent: 10 hits, 5 walks, 7 strikeouts
Record: 7-5, 2 GB, 38-49 overall
SP Austin Voth: 5 IP, 6 H (2 HR), 4 R, 0 BB, 5 SO, 74 P / 53 S, 7.20 ERA
DH Aaron Zavala: 1-3, HR (6), BB, .269/.357/.434
3B John Taylor: 1-4, HR (5), .195/.352/.425
Newcomer Austin Voth surrendered a homer to Zac Veen on his third pitch but retired the next 12 straight. He was cruising to a fine Round Rock debut until the third-time-through-the-order penalty hit in the form of another Veen homer and two other singles. The performance matched his resume. He’s homer-prone but throws strikes and can miss a bat. I suppose he’s in the mix as an emergency starter call-up.
Scout’s honor, my daughter and I called shots yesterday, sort of:
Daughter: “He [John Talyor] needs to homer so we can take the lead.”
Taylor: [home run]
Daughter (after an ABQ stolen base): “If he scores we’ll still be ahead 3-2.”
Me: Yes, but if this guy [Zac Veen] goes deep again, we’ll be tied.”
Zac Veen: [home run]
Pittsburgh released IF Davis Wendzel. The Bucs bought his contract from AAA in early June, and he had four hitless appearances before rejoining Indianapolis.
Round Rock split the series with Albuquerque and heads to Arizona-affiliated Reno this week.
AA: Frisco 8, Midland (ATH) 7
Frisco: 13 hits, 5 walks, 11 strikeouts
Opponent: 12 hits, 6 walks, 14 strikeouts
Record: 6-6, 2 GB, 45-35 overall
SP Dylan MacLean: 5 IP, 6 H (2 HR), 4 R, 3 BB, 4 SO, 89 P / 57 S, 4.50 ERA
3B Rafe Perich: 3-4, 2B, BB, .301/.410/.584
CF Dylan Dreiling: 2-4, 2B, BB, .274/.359/.444
1B Arturo Disla: 1-3, 2 BB, .282/.364/.472
DH Ian Moller: 2-4, 2B, .229/.339/.438
Perich’s eight-game homer drought is his longest since 13 to begin the season, but he has three singles, six doubles and seven walks in that span.
Frisco and Midland shared the honors last week. Midland leads the second half division race and was as likely as Frisco to win the first until a late collapse. 
Hi-A: Hub City 8, at Asheville (HOU) 11
Hub City: 13 hits, 7 walks, 9 strikeouts
Opponent: 11 hits, 9 walks, 9 strikeouts
Record: 5-10, 5 GB, 39-42 overall
SP D.J. McCarty: 2.2 IP, 3 H (2 HR), 7 R, 5 BB, 1 HBP, 5 SO, 64 P / 31 S, 5.96 ERA
RP Jesus Gamez: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 SO, 4.13 ERA
LF Chandler Pollard: 3-6, SB (17), .238/.330/.343
CF Hector Osorio: 3-5, BB, .258/.376/.443
RF Maxton Martin: 3-5, 2 HR (11), BB, .235/.299/.437
Max Martin had a fun week, reaching 14 times and clubbing four homers in six games.
Since the beginning of May, Hub City’s pitchers lead all of high-A with 348 walks allowed, exactly six per game. Converted batter Jesus Gamez has the system’s third-best K rate of 37% (barely behind AJ Russell and Eric Loomis) but also the worst walk rate of 24%.
Hub City lost five of six in Asheville and was outscored by 21. The task becomes no easier this week, as Hub City hosts 55-25 Bowling Green.
Lo-A: Hickory 3, at Myrtle Beach (CHC) 2
Hickory: 3 hits, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts
Opponent: 7 hits, 3 walks, 12 strikeouts
Record: 12-3, 2 G up, 46-33 overall
SP Evan Siary: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 SO, 66 P / 45 S, 3.70 ERA
RP Wily Villar: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 SO, 3.13 ERA
Hickory took four of six In SC, allowing just 3.3 runs per game. Given the overlap in names between high-A and low-A, you’d think the walk rates of Hub City and Hickory might run close together, but Hickory has the fifth-fewest walks in low-A since the beginning of May. Evan Siary gets credit for some of that, as he’s spent the whole year with Hickory and has walked just five in his last eight starts. The 2025 eighth-rounder has occasionally been homer-prone and owns a 19% K rate, ight by current standards.
Like Saturday, the Crawdads were heavily sac-fly-reliant for runs, which is fine but gives me little to report.
This week, Hickory visits Augusta, closest to Hickory in the second half with a 10-5 record.
Ten Years Ago Yesterday
Five years ago was boring. Ten years ago I wrote the following: “I noticed that none of Round Rock’s first eight starting pitchers were still with the squad (Nick Martinez, Cesar Ramos, Nick Tepesch, Anthony Ranaudo, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Phil Klein, Chad Bell, Michael Roth). The current rotation was, more-or-less: Kyle Loshe (who would actually head to Arlington and never see Round Rock again, thank goodness), Eric Surkamp (just claimed off waivers), Richelson Pena (22, scant experience above high-A), Jose Monegro (the “we need a guy” guy for several years), and Jimmy Reyes (eight starts in six pro seasons).”
I bring this up in reference to the recent Athletic story “MLB farm systems were key to development, depth. Now, minor leagues struggle to adapt” ($ link). In it were a litany of issues related to the hard organization-wide player limits: younger rosters, promotions based on reasons other than performance, less room for AAA veteran depth, game-day crunches caused by AAA pitchers held out as possible MLB reinforcement, position players pitching, lack of arms at the complexes, a sink-or-swim mentality forcing out slow developers, general decline in quality, roster churn, etc.
Not that I disagree with anything written, but at the same time, I’ve been covering the minors for 20 years, and feel I’ve been hearing similar complaints the entire time. Round Rock’s on-the-fly rotation isn’t anything new. I would have to do some research and couldn’t say for other clubs, but I feel the Rangers are actually using fewer position players on the mound now than during the late 2010s. A sea change in the game, declining pitcher workloads, was well underway years before the current system was enacted.
One greatly beneficial change that partly mitigates the org-wide roster limit is larger rosters at each level. When I started, AAA was limited to 24 players, the other full-season squads to 25. Now, limits are 28 in AA/AAA and 30 in the the A levels. Also, there was no “development list” where players could be temporarily parked. A minor injury might result in a seven-day IL stint because the squad couldn’t handle even two or three days of unavailability. Roster rules were pointlessly, stupidly restrictive, a relic of the distant past.
Skip to content
tantamount to cordial