Braves AFL Recap: Clohisy has huge first week

With Tropical Storm Priscilla bearing down on Arizona, it was a shortened opening week for the Arizona Fall League. Glendale only played three of their scheduled six games, but that was still plenty of time for Patrick Clohisy to make a huge mark.

Fall Stats: 1 G, 1-4, 2B, 2 BB, RBI, .250/.500/.500

It took a couple of games to get Alvarez’s debut in the fall league, and it wasn’t the greatest game for him at the plate. He, of course, showed off his eye at the plate by drawing a couple of walks but his contact quality was poor and he had a couple of strikeouts to go along with the weak contact. Alvarez really struggled with fastballs, whiffing on three of his five swings at them and making weak contact the one time he did put one in play. Alvarez’s zone recognition ensured he provided value in the game, and a bloop double in the first inning drove in the first run of the game.

Fall Stats: 1.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 20.25 ERA

While Glendale was able to come away with their first win of the season on Thursday, it wasn’t due to the help of any Braves pitchers. Three Braves pitchers, including Buchanan, pitched and they combined to give up all seven of the runs scored by Scottsdale. Buchanan actually had a terrific seventh inning, setting down the side in order with a weak fly out and two swinging strikeouts. His next inning unfortunately went off the rails as he battled a combination of poor execution and bad luck which turned into three runs and only one out recorded. He left too many fastballs and sliders over the middle of the plate in that inning, though he also had a couple of poorly hit plays that fell for hits — including a bloop double that chased him from the game. In all Buchanan had the best inning of any of the Braves pitchers to pitch last week, but his second time out ruined the momentum.

Fall Stats: 3 G, 3-11, 2B, 3 BB, 5 SB, .273/.429/.364

Patrick Clohisy was a huge contributor to the Desert Dogs offensive success, reaching safely in all three games and stealing five total bases. Clohisy showed a great eye at the plate and was perfect on his stolen base attempts, and his consistent contact put pressure on the opposing team. The biggest issue for him was that all of his hard contact was on the ground, a problem that became less common towards the end of 2025 but was still the one thing that held back his numbers from being great in the regular season. This is, of course, only a three game sample with eight batted balls. Clohisy is a player who is on the cusp right now and could really move up or down prospect rankings with his performance next season, and this seems to be a good start with him. His performance at Double-A and his three games here have shown that he isn’t going to be beat in the strike zone by higher level pitching and that his plate discipline can translate to the upper levels, it’s now just a matter of how much power he is able to hit for at his peak.

Fall Stats: 1-3, BB, SB, .333/.500/.333

Jarvis was Glendale’s best offensive performer in their opening loss (not a high bar to clear) but didn’t get into the lineup across the rest of the week. Jarvis was able to work a walk in the first inning and steal second base, but got too aggressive on his lead which caused him to get picked off and thrown out. Salt River (who needs to wipe off their camera lens) was able to force a weak ground out the next at bat, but Jarvis came through in his biggest at bat of the game. Facing a three run deficit in the fifth inning Glendale cobbled together a rally, scoring a run and bringing Jarvis to the plate with two outs and a man in scoring position. Jarvis smoked a bouncer up the middle that got through into center field for a base hit, driving in a run and bringing Glendale within one. That would be as close as they got, however, and Jarvis grounded out in his final at bat. Jarvis has been hitting the ball pretty hard since coming over to Atlanta, but still doesn’t have the high end exit velocities nor does he consistently hit the ball hard in the air. All of his batted balls in this game had negative launch angles.

Fall Stats: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 0 K, 0.00 ERA

It was an ugly outing for Jhancarlos Lara and he struggled to make any quality pitches. He did nip the strike zone with a couple of well-located fastballs, but his command was atrocious and it boiled down to release point inconsistency. Lara was so much better with that towards the end of the season and it’s reasonable to assume his long layoff may have him out of rhythm, as it’s such a significant outlier from prior outings even though he is always wild. It’s worth chalking up his two-walk opener as rust and hopefully he can produce some better outings as the season goes on.

Fall Stats: 2 G, 2, IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 1 K, 9.00 ERA

LJ McDonough had one good outing and one bad outing, and so far he has really struggled to land his slider near the strike zone. In his first outing he was able to get hitters to chase his slider and he rode that to a scoreless inning and a strikeout, but hitters were much more selective in his long inning on Thursday. They were mostly able to spit on his slider and make McDonough come to them with his fastball, a recipe that isn’t as successful for McDonough’s arsenal. He was having some real trouble repeating his release, which is not an uncommon issue for him, and he wasn’t making quality pitches. The positive was his first outing, where he was much tighter and wasn’t missing horribly with his slider, making those enticing pitches while being able to throw consistent strikes. Overall it’s a pretty good reflection of his minor league career thus far – an inconsistent ride with flashes of good play mostly centered on a strong slider.

Fall Stats: 1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 18.00 ERA

Cory Wall was uncharacteristically scattered with his pitches on Thursday, which turned into a rough outing in which he barely escaped with only two runs allowed. Wall allowed one hard hit ball but mostly avoided hard contact, but the problem was not much that he threw found the strike zone. He walked two batters and hit another (forcing home his second run) before he was able to get a soft line drive to end the inning.