AJ Reed is doing his best imitation of Evan Gattis' 2015 season with two triples in his last two games. http://clips.milb.com/milb/2018/05/05/44-542656-2018-05-04/web_cut/milb_2009784683_1000K.mp4
After his 2-4 showing last night, which included a solo homer (3), Jonathan Arauz is now slashing .297/.407/.516 in Quad Cities. I'd like to see him get a push this summer. There really aren't any overly interesting middle infielders in Buies Creek and Corpus (Sierra, Birk, and De Goti are all probably fringe guys at best) so a strong season at 19 could really put Arauz in the top 100 conversation and top-10 system prospect conversation.
If he finishes the year with that slash line, he would have to be in the conversation for top 30 player in all of minor league ball. Teenagers that can play shortstop and hit like that always get pushed to the top.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-fringe-five-baseballs-most-compelling-fringe-prospects-106/ Josh James and Josh Rojas make Fringe Five again and are 1,2 in overall FF Leaderboard. Even if these guys are never anything, they are getting closer to being second, third guys in a trade. With recent trades, Astros need guys like these to step up to become trade chips.
J.J. Matijevic was activated from the DL today... and he homered in his first plate appearance tonight. Bryan de la Cruz extended his hitting streak to 15 games and drove in Quad Cities' second run with a sac fly in the 1st.
Well, he's mostly appeared at short (18 games), with five starts at 2B and two starts at 3B. The BA Prospect Handbook says he's a SS for now but limited range might force him off the position. Average arm, average runner. Arauz's value is probably going to be tied more to his bat.
Parker Mushinski @ Lansing: 5.1 IP, 3 H, ER, 3 BB, 8 K Mushinski now has 33 strikeouts in 20.2 innings this season.
Excepting his one nightmare start on 4/20, his 2018 numbers: 30.1 ip 4 Er 37 k 4 bb 9 k for every walk is pretty good I guess.
After easily his worst start of the season, where he didn't even get out of the 2nd inning, Josh James gets promoted to AAA.
Given the precursors, I can't blame the other team at all for clearing the bench. I would have. I sure hope he didn't do it on purpose.
It was in an 0-2 count, he was throwing a fastball up and missed his spot pretty bad, but I don't think it was intentional.
