Braves Minor League Recap: Drew Compton hits two home runs

The Rome Emperors are heading to the playoffs next week, and they seem to be getting hot at the right time. They’ve now won six games in a row, this one being headlined by two home runs and six RBIs from Drew Compton. Elsewhere in the Atlanta Braves system the Gwinnett Stripers won behind six innings of one run ball from Drue Hackenberg.

(67-68) Gwinnett Stripers 9, (71-62) Nashville Sounds 2

Box Score

Statcast

• Nacho Alvarez Jr, 3B: 1-4, BB, RBI, .304/.413/.490
• Drake Baldwin, C: 1-5, 2B, RBI, .298/.416/.474
• Drue Hackenberg, SP: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 5 BB, 6 K, 0.75 ERA
• Tyler Matzek, RP: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 9.00 ERA
• Daysbel Hernandez, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 2.59 ERA

Game two in Triple-A for Drue Hackenberg went a bit how his debut did, but he had a bit more luck at missing bats and put up a solid stat line save for his walks. For Hackenberg it wasn’t one of those games where he had a blow up inning and walked a bunch of guys, but a lingering issue with command throughout the game. This helped him in his final line as he simply scattered his walks around and came out unscathed thanks to that sequencing, but the command issues that plagued him early this season have come out in full force for these two outings. Still Hackenberg didn’t give up any sort of hard contact in the air, mostly ground balls and a couple of line drives, and so far in both games Triple-A hitters have struggled to square him up. Hackenberg built up a bit more confidence with his ending at Double-A where he was both missing bats at a high level and avoiding walks but so far the transition to Triple-A has been a bit lackluster as he simply hasn’t commanded the ball well enough for his stuff to shine yet. Daysbel Hernandez was fantastic in relief, once again, putting out his seventh straight scoreless outing. Hernandez has battled against poor command even more than usual in the past couple of weeks, but he found the zone just enough in this game and the Sounds couldn’t make contact against him. Still he needs to make more pitches that at least threaten to land in the zone as his wilder misses over the past month or so will not get chased nearly as often by major league hitters.

Nacho Alvarez is still being fed fastballs in the zone, and in this one he struggled a bit to make an impact. In the ninth inning he did pull a first pitch fastball, and though it was on the ground it was hard enough hit that it was able to get through and into the outfield for a single. Alvarez is swinging at and making contact with basically everything thrown to him in the zone, which is certainly something that is hard to teach players and is not a common trait for players his age to have such good plate coverage. Alvarez has been pulling fastballs more often in recent weeks and hitting them harder on average, though his results there still aren’t good and tend to be straight into the ground. Drake Baldwin had a cool game at the plate as well, at least until the ninth inning. Baldwin did a great job opening up his hips to turn on a 90mph slider on the inner corner of the plate, hitting a hard line drive down the right field line to bring in a run. Baldwin has, like Alvarez, done a better job at both pulling pitches and hitting them harder on the pull side though his sticking point is also launch angle. While it hasn’t been quite as impactful as Alvarez’s inability to lift fastballs on the pull side, Baldwin’s power production is still being held back by his ground ball and line drive rates and it’s really the only yellow flag in his entire profile at this point.

The Gwinnett offense as a whole feasted on Nashville’s bullpen, struggling against veteran starter Mitch White. They quickly jumped all over Brewers prospect Jacob Misiorowski, however, who couldn’t command the ball at all in the seventh inning and issued three walks. The Stripers scored five runs, two coming on a Harold Ramirez double that accounted for one of his three hits. In the ninth inning Chadwick Tromp’s two run double further extended the lead and made it easy for Hernandez to close out the game in the ninth.

Swing and Misses

Drue Hackenberg – 12

Daysbel Hernandez – 7

Tyler Matzek – 2

(61-66) Mississippi Braves, (80-47) Pensacola Blue Wahoos POSTPONED

(63-62) Rome Emperors 10, (60-69) Hickory Crawdads 6

Box Score

• Drew Compton, 1B: 2-4, 2 HR, BB, 6 RBI, .278/.381/.404
• EJ Exposito, SS: 1-5, 2B, 2 RBI, .229/.314/.417
• Herick Hernandez, SP: 3 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 6.00 ERA
• William Silva, RP: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 9.22 ERA

After a disappointing camera angle in last week’s game we finally got a good look at Herick Hernandez’s stuff, and while it wasn’t a dominating performance like his professional debut he still had a fantastic day after a shaky start. Hernandez working with his fastball, slider, and curveball, utilizing his slider often and early in counts as he showed confidence commanding the pitch down in the zone. Hernandez had some trouble commanding the upper half of the zone with his fastball in the first inning, leaving the ball a bit over the plate where he allowed a couple of doubles and two runs in the inning before escaping. This is where he settled in more over the latter part of his start, with his four seam fastball showing a ton of life and bat-missing ability at the top of the zone. Early in the game it was that slider that he commanded better than the fastball, though towards the end he started bouncing most of the ones he threw which hurt his ability to miss bats. His slider has a sharp two-plane bite and was able to get whiffs from both left and right handed batters, showing average potential. His curveball is a deep, downward breaker that provides a change of pace and tumbles underneath the zone, though he didn’t utilize it near as much as his fastball and slider combination.

The star of the show for the Emperors was Drew Compton, who had his first career multi-home run day though it may not have gone quite as most would envision. His first was a bomb, a three run home run to cap off the fifth inning and put the Emperors up early, giving him his seventh of the season across two levels. His fifth inning home run was an inside-the-parker though, a well-hit fly ball that pattered off of the top of the right center field wall and bounded just far enough away for Compton to beat the throw home. Compton’s six RBIs in this game led the team, and I’m excited to see him hitting fly balls on the pull side. His power numbers over the past month had been disappointing — a .055 isolated power in his past 24 games — and while his hit tool will likely carry him to some role in the upper minor leagues he will need to hit for power to get to a major league job. Compton does have enough speed that I could see him get some chances in the outfield to improve his versatility, though right now the Braves have a lot of outfields they want to get playing time and not quite enough spots. EJ Exposito tacked on a two-run double in the ninth inning, staying on a slider on the outer half and splitting the right center gap.

LJ McDonough had a terrible time in the ninth inning, completely losing his feel for the zone and allowing a couple of hits and walks to bring home a run and load the bases. With the tying run now at the plate the Emperors went to William Silva, who slammed the door shut. Silva missed last year with Tommy John surgery but had a good start with Augusta this year before going to High-A where his inconsistency has led to an ERA above nine. Silva was electric, striking out the two, three, and fourth place hitters in order, all swinging, to close out the game. He kept tying up hitters with his slider, but also showed a fastball and changeup.

Swing and Misses

Herick Hernandez – 10

William Silva – 7

Luis Vargas – 6

(46-80) Augusta GreenJackets 5, (65-60) Down East Wood Ducks 6

Box Score

• Junior Garcia, DH: 2-5, RBI, .171/.301/.179
• John Gil, SS: 0-4, RBI, .212/.307/.265
• Will Verdung, 1B: 4-5, 2 RBI, .215/.342/.278
• Rayven Antonio, SP: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 3.66 ERA
• Anthony Garcia, RP: 3 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 5.34 ERA

It was a disappointing one for the GreenJackets, who twice blew late leads to take their 80th loss of the season. Sadly, without an MiLB tv feed we are left to simply guess at the results, and how Rayven Antonio went through six innings of pitching with only one unearned run allowed. Antonio can run up a mid-90’s fastball and pair it with a slider, though he has had issues maintaining velocity and command this season. It was ten ground ball outs that helped him get through this game, though that also comes with the danger of a Single-A defense behind him where the defense committed three errors in the game with one of them helping score a run. Antonio was replaced by Anthony Garcia (who I had a blurb on in my write up of the GreenJackets from Monday) and Garcia seems to have pitched well while holding on to a one run lead. Garcia covered three innings in relief, but a lack of run support caught up to the pitching staff when a couple of single brought home a run in the ninth inning to tie the game.

Offensively there wasn’t much to write home about beyond Will Verdung. Verdung had four hits for the GreenJackets, and drove in two key runs in the game. However it was the Wood Ducks who did most of the work for the first run, as they issued a walk, threw away a pick off, then balked Willmer De La Cruz to third where a John Gil ground out gave them a 1-0 lead. Two innings later De La Cruz again got his name involved, bringing home Mason Guerra on an RBI ground out to retake the lead. The GreenJackets failed to scratch in any more runs until extra innings, where the two best performers from the day made an impact. Junior Garcia’s RBI single, hit second hit of the day, put the GreenJackets up early, and Will Verdung came to the plate late with the bases loaded. Verdung came through with his fourth hit of the game to bring home run two runs and give the GreenJackets the lead, turning the ball over to Reibyn Corona in the bottom of the tenth.

Corona came into this game on the best stretch of his career, dating back over his previous eight appearances. In that time Corona pitched 13 innings while allowing a 2.08 ERA and striking out 14 batters. Today wasn’t the same, as he allowed a hit then hit the next two batters to bring home a run and put the winning run on first base. A sacrifice fly brought home one run, but got Corona his first out and put the GreenJackets in position to potentially get out of it. Unfortunately a ground ball to Willmer De La Cruz went awry, a throwing error helping bring home a run and preventing what was potentially a game-ending double play(?). An intentional walk re-loaded the bases, then to end the game a throwing error from John Gil allowed the winning run to score.

Swing and Misses

Rayven Antonio – 7