The Atlanta Braves affiliates took wins at three of the four levels that played, and none did so in more dominant fashion than the Gwinnett Stripers. With a pitching staff led by eight scoreless innings from Dane Dunning and Jhancarlos Lara, Gwinnett was able to run away late and cruise to a win. Lara has been the most dominant relieve in the system for the past two month, with his progress in overcoming his command woes taking leaps as he is one of the nastiest pitchers in the minor leagues.
(45-63) Gwinnett Stripers 5, (46-58) Columbus Clippers 2
The Gwinnett Stripers had a terrific game all around to open the week, with key contributions coming from the pitching staff, Conner Capel, and newly-promoted Cal Conley. Capel had a particularly productive day, reaching base safely in all four of his plate appearances including a seventh inning home run that opened up a big rally for the team. Conley didn’t trail far behind, though and started off his Triple-A career with a hard hit single in the third inning. Conley beat out a bleeder to the right side in the sixth inning to bring his day up to 2-2, and came around to score on a hit from Eddys Leonard to give Gwinnett the first run of the game. In the next inning Conley drew a walk with two outs, extending the inning to help set up Jarred Kelenic with a bases-loaded opportunity. Kelenic delivered a 101 mph single to double the Gwinnett lead to 4-0. Leonard narrowly missed another big hit by flying out to the wall to end the inning.
Pitching was the place that the Stripers did especially well in, not letting up a run until the final inning of the game in mop up duty. Dane Dunning didn’t have the best stuff, save for his changeup producing great results, but he took advantage of aggressive approaches on Columbus’s side. They consistently chased the ball off of the plate against Dunning, and while he wasn’t able to get a ton and swing and miss outside of the changeup he got oodles of poor contact early in at bats and was able to cover five one hit innings on just 57 pitches. The best performer, though, ended up being Jhancarlos Lara. Lara was coming off of a bit of a blip in his recent tendencies as he struggled with his release point last outing, but this time there was immediate correction and he was able to blow the ball past hitters. He had a bit of trouble hitting the zone with his pitches, but kept it close enough to challenge them to swing and they made contact only 44% of the time on pitches in the zone. Most of Lara’s trouble came to two batters where he lost location and walked them uncompetitively, but otherwise it was another case of Triple-A hitters being unable to manage against his raw stuff. Lara’s progression with his command and release point have allowed him to put up a stretch of pure dominance. Even with his one blow up game in the mix boosting his walk rate significantly over his past 20 innings Lara has a 2.29 ERA/1.97 FIP with a 42.7% strikeout rate and 12% walk rate.
(40-59) Columbus Clingstones, (35-66) Rocket City Trash Pandas POSTPONED
(42-58) Rome Emperors 4, (51-51) Greenville Drive 3
It’s been a terrible season for Adam Maier, but in some ways it has been slightly better across his past few appearances as he’s avoided some of the problems that brutalized him in the first few months. He only has allowed four walks with no home runs over the past three appearances, and he’s been more consistent at keeping the ball on the ground and getting hitters to roll over pitches. Unfortunately he has also been getting hit hard, but on Tuesday he had a much more consistent outing all around and didn’t give up nearly the number of hits he has been throughout the season. Unfortunately, despite only walking one batter his control was a consistent problem and he fell behind hitters frequently, ultimately ending up with another pedestrian outing. All of the damage came in a single inning, however, with all four hits, all three runs, and his lone walk coming within a six batter span in the fourth inning.
With Rome facing a now substantial lead following the fourth inning the offense needed to kick things in to gear, but all around they had trouble making contact this game. In total the Emperors struck out 12 times, and notably Alex Lodise and Isaiah Drake both had poor outings with three strikeouts a piece. It was mostly awful hitting, but like Greenville they were able to string all of their damage together in a single inning. Logan Braunschweig’s leadoff bunt single was the second hit for the Emperors (after his own in the second inning) and kicked off a sequence where Greenville’s wildness (6 BB in the first 4 innings) finally took hold. Walks from Tyler Tolve and Colby Jones loaded the bases with no one out, but after Drake’s ground out pushed home a run Lodise struck out in a massive spot for the second out. Fortunately the Emperors had a little two out magic, with a walk setting up a two-run single from Mason Guerra then a go-ahead hit from Justin Janas.
These four runs were everything the Emperors bullpen needed to seize the advantage. Unlike Greenville, the Rome pitching staff kept walks to a minimum, with the only example being that fourth inning free pass. David Rodriguez carried the bullpen in the second half of the game, striking out a game-high six batters over three scoreless innings without issuing a walk. Rodriguez’s dominance helped keep the Rome bullpen from wasting arms and protected the lead for the majority of the end of the game, setting the stage for Cory Wall to continue a strong season (1.75 ERA) by closing out his first save.
(52-48) Augusta GreenJackets 0, (55-46) Charleston RiverDogs 7
Thank goodness for Owen Carey, because otherwise this would be a very unfortunate game to write up. Carey was the only conscious batter in the GreenJackets lineup, with him pouring out a 3-4 day while the rest of the team combined to go 1-28 with 10 strikeouts. Cody Miller had the only other hit in the game, a positive result for the 2025 third round pick, but also struck out in his other three plate appearances. Carey’s solid contact was a clear highlight in an abysmal day for the whole team, and the Jackets will hope this is a sign of things to come for Carey. Carey has been on a nasty slide for the past month and a half, seeing his power and on base numbers take precipitous falls, but this is the first three-hit game and second multi-hit game for him since June 22nd. Carey has battled inconsistency and has been making poor quality contact in the meantime, but has still maintained low strikeout rates during the time.
Ethan Bagwell hasn’t put out a breakout performance in Augusta this season, but his steady strike-throwing and solid swing-and-miss stuff has been consistent in his handful of healthy appearances this season. Though the strikeouts didn’t show up on the board Bagwell repeated that trend on Tuesday, covering a career high six innings for the GreenJackets while limiting hard contact. What little offense Charleston was able to muster came on ground balls, and outside of a three-hit, two wild pitch hiccup in the fifth inning they had no answer for him. Despite missing a lot of development time this season Bagwell has managed to impress in his first full season and check off important developmental milestones, though the Braves will want to see more games like this one where he is able to avoid contact altogether.
(19-25) DSL Braves 10, (31-14) DSL Tampa Bay 6
The theme of big innings was present for the DSL Braves as well, with a five-run third providing half of the team’s runs and giving them an early advantage they would hold through the end of the game. Angel Carmona wasn’t one of those with major contributions this game, only getting a walk and a hit by pitch, but the reports for him have been largely positive so far. He is hitting the ball hard down there and seems to be taking better at bats with each passing game, and over his past five has six walks. Elias Reyno is setting aside an early trend of strikeouts to put impressive games on the board of late with 23 walks to 15 strikeouts since the start of July. His strikeouts are a bit higher than is typical for a good prospect in the DSL, but his walk rates have been massive and his .108 isolated power is solid for the level.
