Cubs Minor League News: Comeback for DSL Cubs Red, Suriel and Altuve impressive, more |
Once again, it was Rookie League Monday down on the farm as the full-season leagues had their universal off day to get this week started. Despite the Rookie teams putting together a 1-2 mark on the night, all three games were competitive, which is all you can ask for at this juncture of the season.
That hasn't been something the Cubs could say for much of this season, so to have the rookie league teams getting better as the season goes on is a plus. A big reason for that is the constant influx of new players to the rosters, which gives the teams new faces and opportunities to do things. With the minor leagues hopefully returning to normal next season, expect the rosters to look a lot different in 2022 with fewer moving pieces.
The best of the Rookie League teams happens to be the ACL Cubs, but they are far from perfect. After allowing five first-inning runs to the Mariners, the Cubs offense began to chip away only to see their comeback effort fall short in the end. Putting your team in an early hole is never easy, and that is precisely what happened to Andricson Salvador, who suffered his first loss of the season. Despite allowing five runs in the first, his ERA remains solid and sits at 3.41 for the season. The Mariners opened the barrage of a first inning with a pair of RBI singles as Randy Bednar, and Charlie Welch gave the Mariners a 3-0 lead. A pair of hit-by-pitches kept things rolling with the bases loaded, with the Cubs trailing 5-0 after one. As rough as things were to start the game, the Cubs pitching did a great job keeping the Mariners quiet the rest of the game, which gave their offense a chance to make something happen. 2021 second-round pick James Triantos has been red hot his last few games, and that carried over to a new week of competition as a third-inning RBI single put the Cubs on the board trailing 5-1. The Cubs continued their comeback effort in the sixth when they made things extremely interesting. Felix Stevens has also been heating up of late, and he delivered another RBI single to make things 5-2. That was when Ismael Mena cashed in with a huge RBI double pulling the Cubs within 5-4. Still trailing by one and down to their final at-bats, the Cubs couldn't get anything going as they were retired in order and suffered a 5-4 loss. Triantos, Stevens, and Mena picked up three of the Cubs five hits to go with all four RBIs in a mostly quiet day. Rafael Morel and Ronnier Quintero added the other two hits while Yovanny Cuevas took three walks on the evening. Reggie Preciado suffered a rare hitless night as his average fell to .339.
Sparked by some late offense that saw the Cubs push across eight runs in the final three innings, DSL Red was able to complete the comeback against the Giants. They improved to 10-17 on the season with the win and were the lone team with a victory Monday. Brayan Altuve opened the scoring with a first-inning homer, only to see Diego Villegas tie things up with an RBI single in the second. In the third inning, the Giants started to take over, using the Mauricio Pierre homer to grab the lead before a bases-loaded walk, and Villegas single had them in front 4-1 after three. That score held until the sixth when the Giants pushed their lead to 6-1 following RBI singles from Randy Arrieta and Juanes Urena, but that is when the Cubs offense began to find their rhythm. That all started with a Starlin Mateo homer in the seventh to pull within 6-3 before the Anderson Suriel triple in the eighth had them down 6-4. Following a wild pitch that saw the Giants pick up a huge eighth inning run, the Cubs saved the best for last in terms of their offense as they went to work in the ninth inning. An Altuve single pulled the Cubs within 7-5 before Suriel made the Giants pay with an RBI double to tie things up 7-7. Add in a wild pitch and the Geuri Lubo single, and the Cubs pushed across five runs in that ninth inning, which proved to be the difference in their 9-7 win. Suriel and Altuve had the hot hand in this one, with each player connecting for three hits to go with five combined RBIs. Cristian More added a pair of hits with Pedro Ramirez, Mateo, Lubo, Raino Coran, and Luis Maza, all having hits in the win. Moises Ballesteros went hitless.
The Cubs continue their efforts to try and reach .500 but once again come up short, falling to the Pirates 4-1 to move to 12-14 on the season. With Samuel Rodriguez giving the Cubs another strong three innings start to bring his ERA to 1.59 on the season, the offense was nowhere to be found as they couldn't solve the Pirates pitching. Two innings into the game, and the Pirates had a 2-0 lead, with both runs crossing home without the benefit of a hit. That is how baseball sometimes goes as a double-play ball in the first gave the Pirates the lead for good, while Jesus Castillo's RBI groundout provided the Pirates with the winning run. The Pirates added to their lead in the fifth with a Castillo sacrifice fly, and just like that, it was 3-0, with all three runs coming without an RBI hit. Holding tough, but still, without a run, the Cubs began to make some noise in the bottom of the fifth, with Esmarly Tatis working a one-out walk to get a runner on base. Following his fifth steal and a wild pitch, Raul Guzman got the Cubs on the board as his RBI single pulled them within 3-1. Guzman advanced to second on an error, but was left stranded at third as the Cubs couldn't come through with another clutch hit. That proved to be costly in the end, with the Pirates picking up their fourth and final run in the seventh off a balk and the Cubs failing to put another runner past second the rest of the way. That is what sealed their fate in a 4-1 loss on Monday. With just four hits, you can see why runs were hard to come by as Guzman collected two of those four hits to go with that RBI. Frank Hernandez and Wally Soto recorded the other two hits while Cristian Hernandez continues to go through the growing pains for a young player suffering an 0-3 day and watching his average fall to .216.ACL MARINERS 5 – ACL CUBS 4
DSL CUBS RED 9 – DSL GIANTS 7
DSL PIRATES 4 – DSL CUBS BLUE 1
