Diamondbacks Farm Round-Up 4/25: Easy Edition

An easy Round-Up for me today, as both the Triple-A and Low-A clubs had travel days on Wednesday. That said, the Double-A club made up for the lack of action throughout the system with a crazy game of their own, going to twelve innings against Chattanooga, with four innings of trading zeroes sandwiching a good deal of offense. There was a clear top performer from that marathon game in Mobile - despite the loss for the team, a relatively forgotten outfield prospect (perhaps just by me...) had himself a phenomenal day for the BayBears.

Snakelet of the Day:

Marc Krauss (Double-A): 3-4, 3 2B, 2 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB, K

Triple-A: The PCL had a day off on Wednesday, and the Aces will resume action tomorrow, with Barry Enright on the bump.

Double-A (12 innings): Mobile 7, Chattanooga 8. (11-10) This was a game book-ended by sub-par pitching performances from two typically-reliable pitching prospects in Arizona's system, Tyler Skaggs and Kevin Munson. Skaggs' issue in this one was the long-ball, as the stud southpaw allowed three home runs in six innings on the mound, yet still limited the damage to five runs (four earned) by striking out seven and allowing just five hits and two walks. Given the context of Skaggs' home run problems, the outing was actually surprisingly successful.

Munson, on the other hand, had his rough start to the season continue to go awry in the late innings. Munson originally came in for the eleventh inning, putting up a zero to extend the game to the twelfth. However, after Mobile spotted him a pair of runs in the top half of the inning, Munson got just two outs before allowing three runs to cross the plate, as Chattanooga walked it off. In-between Skaggs and Munson, though, the relief quartet of Matt Gorgen, Taylor Sinclair, Evan Marshall, and Eury De La Rosa combined to throw four scoreless innings of relief with three strikeouts and one walk (oddly enough, Gorgen's K:BB on the night was 3:1, with the rest of that group combining for a 0:0 ratio over 2.1 innings).

On the offensive side of things, second baseman David Nick returned to action after missing some time with a concussion, going 1-6 with a single, but no strikeouts. Leading the way for Mobile was outfielder Marc Krauss, who collected three hits - all of them doubles - and two walks in his stellar evening. Wladimir Sutil added a double of his own, and Kyle Greene tripled, but Krauss was the only BayBears hitter to have a multi-hit game, even with most of the lineup getting six trips to the plate in this contest. First baseman Yazy Arbelo went 1-6 with two more strikeouts, collecting just his second hit - both singles - at Double-A in 26 at-bats. This is speculation, but perhaps Arbelo's pull-heavy fastballs-only hitting approach that I saw last year at South Bend is starting to be exploited by more advanced pitching?

Hi-A (10 innings): Visalia 3, Modesto 4. (7-13) Things got off to a great start for Visalia in this game, as doubles from Chris Owings, Bobby Borchering, and Raywilly Gomez in the first inning gave the Rawhide a quick 3-0 lead over Modesto. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there, as the offense sputtered for the next nine innings and the pitching staff slowly squandered the small margin for error they had been given. Starter Michael Bolsinger had a good outing, allowing just one unearned run in 5.2 innings of work while striking out six and walking three, but relievers Mike Belfiore, Blake Cooper, and Eric Smith each allowed one earned run in their relief appearances, combining for six strikeouts, two walks, four hits, two solo home runs, and two wild pitches in 4.1 innings of relief.

Low-A: South Bend had a day off as the team hits the road for Cedar Rapids. J.R. Bradley will be on the mound tomorrow.