It was a busy Saturday on the last full Saturday of action for this season, with a level debut, more Owen Murphy magic, a key injury, and some good hitting from the young guys down in Augusta. While the Atlanta Braves system as a whole this season hasn’t really produced a true breakout player, the end of the season has been promising for all of the teams with a bunch of guys stepping up and showing marked improvement over the final month and a half.
(61-76) Gwinnett Stripers 4, (76-59) Durham Bulls 3
After a dominant August in Columbus Lucas Braun finally earned his call up to Gwinnett, and in his first outing in a Stripers uniform he did not disappoint. Braun’s brand of heavy fastball and slider usage inside the strike paid off for him with six innings of two run ball, though he wasn’t able to miss as many bats as he was through his prior half dozen starts in Columbus. His biggest flaw in the game was letting his secondary pitches drift up and over the plate too often, which blunted his success overall, but he was nailing his fastball command and had success with those pitches. His cutter, while used sparingly, was his most effective pitch with three of his ten whiffs. Braun leaving pitches over the plate resulted in him getting hit fairly hard throughout the game, with all of the hard contact coming on his fastball/sinker/slider, but the Bulls weren’t able to get the hard hit balls up into the air. As a result Braun limited damage outside of the second inning where they were able to string together a few hits and plate two runs. It wasn’t Braun’s best, though, and he will need to be sharper with his slider in future outings to have sustained success, but it isn’t a bad jumping off point with his fastball command looking solid and his lesser secondaries looking good in limited usage.
It’s been a rough stretch for David McCabe at the plate, even though he has been hitting the ball hard throughout his slump. His whiffs have jumped up as pitchers have figured out that he especially struggles against changeups at this stage, though he has done an incredible job of laying off of pitches out of the zone. He started out this game getting a chance to hit against fastballs in the strike zone, and he jumped on and pulled a hard line drive into right field in the first inning for an RBI double that put Gwinnett on top early. McCabe had another solid at bat later in the game where he drew a hard-earned walk, though he ended his day by fishing for a changeup and going down with a swinging strikeout. His contribution to the Stripers scoring can’t be understated though, and that first inning double was his first extra base hit in over two weeks. He has still not had a multi-hit game in awhile and the strikeouts have piled up in the last two series, but McCabe has shown a pattern in the past of needing time to adjust to levels before being able to take off. Hopefully this pattern can hold at Triple-A, where his strike zone recognition is elite but he still doesn’t have a clear attack plan on pitches inside of the strike zone. He is not pulling the ball in the air nearly as consistently or with the same ferocity he did in Double-A, and that presents the biggest hole in his game currently. Luke Waddell joined McCabe in having a standout game on the offensive end, with a couple of 100+ mph singles and a run scored.
(56-72) Columbus Clingstones 0, (76-56) Montgomery Biscuits 1
Hopefully the Clingstones are able to give their home fans something to cheer about in their last game at Synovus Park in 2025, as the penultimate match was a disappointing offensive showing all around. They simply could not get anything going, and most of the time when they did get a runner on base it was erased by a caught stealing or a double play. For Patrick Clohisy this game looked to be another game in this recent crushing slump, but he was able to take a bright spot away out of the final plate appearance. It wasn’t a great hit, but Clohisy was able to slice a one out single into left field in the ninth inning, giving the Clingstones just a small taste of life still down one in the game. Geraldo Quintero followed with solid contact, but the liner hung up in the air where the center fielder ran it down for the second out. This left the fate of the game in the bat of Ethan Workinger, and it was a narrow escape for the Biscuits. Workinger hit a shot into left field that in most cases would have easily burned the defender for a double, but the left fielder was playing back in a no-doubles defense, putting him in position to run down the hot shot near the warning track.
The one big positive from this game was the performance of Brett Sears and the Columbus pitching staff, which held the Biscuits down to just three hits. Sears has been trading off good and bad outings lately, and in this one he had a good feel for locating all of his pitches and was able to limit the Biscuits to poor contact while racking up five backwards Ks. Sears still isn’t making pitches to miss bats at this level, but his approach is generally geared more towards nipping corners and getting weak contact, which he excelled at in this game. The only reason Sears took a loss in this game was due to defensive miscues between he and Drew Compton at first base. To lead off the third inning Compton made a nice diving stop on a grounder to the right side, but his throw to Sears covering the bag was a bit behind Sears, and it bounced off of his glove allowing the runner to reach on an error. Sears then bounced a pickoff attempt that Compton was unable to handle, putting a runner in scoring position with no outs in the inning. Two fly outs were enough to chase the runner around to score, an ill-timed inning to be the only one where Sears was unable to get a strikeout.
(58-69) Rome Emperors 3, (64-66) Hub City Spartanburgers 0
Assuming he doesn’t get a one-game showcase at Double-A to close the season (a move that would not shock me in the least), Owen Murphy finished his 2025 season with yet another terrific performance. It was not the most dominant outing we’ve seen from Murphy, but he was solid with his fastball and was able to ramp up to a season-high 93 pitches without showing ill effect. Unfortunately, like in his last outing, he wasn’t able to have any sort of consistent location on his breaking balls. He was able to land a few of his slow curveballs in for strikes but struggled to keep his slider down and it resulted in a few late-at bat hits or batters being able to foul the pitch off. Murphy did a wonderful job this game of locating his fastball up in the zone, getting some swing-and-miss and a lot of weak fly balls, and the only inning he really struggled with that was in the first. This season has been a resounding success for Murphy, and even though his feel for his secondaries did hit a wall over the past few starts it is hard to complain about his performance when he has been this good with his fastball so immediately after returning from Tommy John surgery. He looks to be ready to start out 2026 in Double-A and has already earned enough trust from the Braves to let him get into deep pitch counts.
This game ultimately ended early, in the Emperors favor, due to the long rain delay to start the game, but it ended even earlier for Alex Lodise. In the third inning Lodise flipped a single into center field with two outs, giving him hits now in all four games this month despite his strikeouts still being a major issue. Lodise advanced to second on a hit batter, and then the infield conditions took a bit out of him. On a single into left field by Isaiah Drake, Lodise went hard around third to try to score, but slipped on the base and appeared to roll his ankle. He went down in a heap holding that left ankle, and while he was able to get up and walk off of the field he was pulled for the game in what is likely his last play of a somewhat underwhelming professional debut. Lodise’s approach and contact issues were a major negative on his overall numbers, but he did excel at hitting the ball hard and piling up extra base hits.
Before Murphy departed the game the Emperors were able to give him a bit of a cushion so they could hold on to the lead. Cooper McMurray had a solo home run early in the game, but for most of the day that was the only run and Murphy had to make every pitch count. That was until the sixth inning when Hub City reliever Case Matter had his command fail him and he walked three Rome batters before being pulled from the game. Keshawn Ogans managed to come through with a clutch single to score two runners, giving Rome their final tally of three runs. Overall, though, it was a weak offensive showing from Rome. Isaiah Drake had two hits in the game, but neither were hit particularly well with the first being a swinging bunt and the second that roller through the left side on the Lodise play. Drake wasn’t able to check his swing on a slider in the dirt in his final at bat and struck out, but even still he’s been solid despite not having many hard hit balls. He’s been making competitive at bats and swinging at the right pitches, but he’s been on top of everything lately and has gotten a bit back into the habit of getting out in front of pitches. and leaning over the plate. He’s making a ton of contact right now, he just needs to make the adjustments to get that contact back to being impactful and he should be fine next season after what has been an impressive improvement from last season to now.
(66-62) Augusta GreenJackets 4, (64-67) Kannapolis Cannon Ballers 13
Augusta and Kannapolis played six innings of good baseball, and then it all fell apart for the GreenJackets late with the Cannon Ballers running away to a big win. With that in mind it was a great start for Landon Beidelschies, though it ended far differently than he would have hoped. The leadoff hitter reached on a drag bunt, but Beidelschies picked him off and then rattled off five straight strikeouts. His slider was particularly nasty and he was spotting it well early, though he was also able to get some decent early action on his changeup. Hitters were keying in on his fastball, though, and while he didn’t give up hits early it set the stage for some later struggles when he couldn’t get the pitch past those hitters. A get-over fastball got cranked for a home run to break the strikeout streak, and his third inning got marred as inconsistency cropped up. His earlier command of his pitches faded and he started getting hit and walking guys, and though he managed to only allow one run in the inning it was still an ugly performance that drove up his pitch count and led to him leaving the game after one out in the fourth inning.
Early in this game the GreenJackets had all of the hallmarks of a huge offensive explosion from the big players, but after a handful of great at bats the excitement fizzled down the stretch. John Gil kept up with his incredible surge at the plate in the first inning, hitting a rocket into the left center field gap for a leadoff double that gives him 14 extra base hits dating back to the start of August. Gil has been the clear breakout player for the Braves system in the second half of the season, and it’s been his ability to attack fastballs and drive them hard in the air that has made such a huge difference for him. The rest of the game though he didn’t have as much success, with his only other hit being a bloop single late in the game that didn’t amount to much. Tate Southisene has been struggling lately at making consistent contact, but in the first inning he did a great job of recognizing a breaking ball on 0-2, staying with the slow curveball and turning to drive a liner into left field for a double to score Gil. It was his lone hit of the game, but also marked his first double in a couple of weeks of play. Southisene’s 26 strikeout to zero walks is horrendous right now, but it’s not wise to judge a guy fresh out of high school too harshly (look at how poor Gil looked to end the season in 2024) and when he does make contact like in this case the ball really jumps. That was all Augusta would get early, as a liner from Owen Carey was caught for the first out of the inning and two strikeouts stranded Southisene at second base. Carey would make an impact in his next plate appearance, turning on a slider that stayed in the upper third of the zone and bruising a solo home run. Carey has been quiet since his hot start to the season, but don’t underrate how great he has looked over the past month. The hitting adjustments he’s made have him putting the ball in play on the pull side with much more authority, and after that summer swoon he has gotten back to making contact at a plus rate. The improvement in contact quality and rate has only shown marginally in games so far, but his power lately has been on the upswing and he heads into the offseason right on the precipice of turning a corner. It’s a similar situation to where Gil was a couple of months ago and Carey is starting to find his rhythm and check off all of the boxes we were hoping to see in his development.
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