Cubs Minor League News: Rookie League Action

Patrick Gorski - USA Today Sports

by Dustin Riese - Senior Writer - Tue Jul 23 09:08:42 GMT-05:00 2024

With the All-Star break now behind us, it is time to get back to normal regarding the Minor League schedule. That means it's back to Rookie League Monday, as this is the only time we can focus solely on the Rookie League teams.

As expected, there will be many changes coming to the Rookie League squads, mostly the ACL teams, as the MLB draft is over and players start reporting to their respective sites for organizational placement. That means the teams you see today may be different from the same-looking teams in a week or two, so get ready to see plenty of new faces.

Despite all three Rookie League teams being in action on Monday, only one game counted against the win-loss record.

ACL CUBS 11 - ACL ROCKIES 10 (F/11)

Talk about an exciting game filled with plenty of offense. The Cubs and Rockies brought the boom sticks to the park as they combined for 21 runs. This was one of those games where regulation wasn't enough, as the Cubs needed 11 innings to grab this win.

This was one of those games where the Cubs had to play catchup right from the start as a Skyler Messinger double put the Rockies in front 1-0 in the first. Things only got worse from there as a Francisco Garcia two-run single and a bases-loaded walk aided to three more runs to put the Cubs in an early 4-0 hole.

The Cubs responded in their half of the second with Jefferson Encarnacion getting the scoring started for them with a sacrifice fly, while RBI singles Jose Escobar and Angel Cepeda saw the Cubs tie things up at 4. Following a wild pitch that allowed Derniche Valdez to score in the bottom of the third, the Cubs offense continued to do damage as they broke the game wide open in the fifth.

It all started with a Valdez single to extend the Cubs lead to 6-4, with Eriandys Ramon following suit with a single of his own to make things 7-4. The Cubs added a run later in the frame as they led 8-4 at this point. Not to be outdone in the sixth, it was the Rockies having one more furious run in them as a trio of RBI singles and a Derek Bernard RBI double led to four runs, with a balk pushing across the fifth run of that inning to put the Rockies back in front 9-8.

That score would hold until the eighth when Cepeda came through with a massive RBI double to tie things up 9-9 and helped send this game into extras. With both teams coming away with a run in the 10th, the Cubs got the last laugh as the Yahil Melendez single in the 11th gave the Cubs a walk-off 11-10 win.

The Cubs pounded out 14 hits in the win, with Escobar leading the way with three. Five other players recorded multiple hits, including Melendez, Cepeda, and Valdez. Valdez has raised his average to .239 since moving to the ACL.

DSL CUBS BLUE 4 - DSL CUBS RED 3 (Suspended in the fourth)

What had the makings of an exciting finish, both the DSL Blue and Red squads and fans of the organization are going to have to wait on a winner as this game as called early. The offense was certainly the story in this one, as both teams came out swinging and put together plenty of offensive fireworks from the first inning on.

In that first inning, DSL Blue grabbed the early lead, and a Cesar Lugo squeeze play worked to perfection to put Blue in the top 1-0. One inning later, Blue broke the game wide open, pushing across three runs to open up a 4-0 lead before Red knew what hit them.

Not only did an error lead to the first run in that inning, but a wild pitch aided to the second run as Blue opened up a 3-0 lead. They would push their lead to 4-0 on the Alexey Lumpuy groundout as they were making the most of the chances given to them on the field. Those were the final runs up to the suspension of the game for Blue, as Red responded with three unanswered runs to make things a bit more interesting.

The first of those runs came in the third inning as Ezequiel Pena kept the trend going of driving in runs without a hit using an RBI forceout to get the job done. Then came the fourth inning when Red started to get the bats rolling as the Edgardo De Leon triple pulled Red within 4-2 before he came in to score on the Robin Ortiz single to make this a 4-3 game. That is where things will resume when the action picks back up.