Cubs Minor League News: Ballesteros with 3rd homer, Mena raking, Vasquez impressive, more |
Monday's are always an interesting day as the Minor Leagues are generally quiet. That is unless you play in Rookie ball, as this is their day to shine with full-season leagues enjoying their universal off-day/travel day.
With that being said, all three of the Cubs rookie league affiliates were on the field, and although they posted just a 1-2 mark, you have to like what you see from some of these players. While it is unclear what will happen next with some of them, but you can expect some minor promotions in the coming weeks.
Monday brought plenty of excitement in the ACL, with the Cubs picking up a hard-fought extra-inning win. In terms of the pitching, neither side had the greatest results, but a series of errors from each side magnified the overall damage. There were eight combined errors, so the Cubs have to feel somewhat fortunate they committed the lesser of the two sides. With no score in the third inning, Mosies Ballesteros changed that with one swing as he connected for his third homer. Add in an attempted double steal that saw Cristian More thrown out at second, but allowed Pedro Ramirez to come home, and the Cubs had a 2-0 lead. The Diamondbacks responded with a big inning of their own as Manuel Pena tied things up with an RBI triple before a wild pitch saw the Diamondbacks take a 3-2 lead. The Cubs offense continued to stay hot in the fourth, with Christian Olivo reaching first base on a fielder's choice to tie the game before a costly throwing error put the Cubs up 4-3. The back and forth affair continued into the fifth, with Gavin Conticello tying things up with an RBI double. After Cristian Hernandez gave the Cubs the lead with a sacrifice fly, Kenny Castillo brought things back to even as his single in the eighth made things 5-5 and helped send the game into extras. In that extra frame, it was the Cubs offense coming out strong, and boy, did they benefit from that. A Rafael Morel single gave the Cubs the lead, but an error on the same play allowed two runs to score, making it 7-5. Add in the Olivo Squeeze bunt, and the Cubs were up 8-5 with the Diamondbacks coming to bat. Singles from Daniel Torres and Marco Pernalete pulled the Diamondbacks within 8-7, but the Cubs would stand pat holding them off for the win. Morel was on a mission on Monday as he led the offense with four hits and two RBIs. Hernandez, Ballesteros and Ismael Mena had multi-hit games of their own.
Despite a great effort by the Cubs, the results were not in their favor falling to the Mets 5-4. Yafrerlyn Vasquez gave the Cubs three innings of one-run ball in his best outing of the season. That paved the way for Leury Gomez, who was bitten by some errors and charged with three unearned runs before the Mets managed to walk things off. Down 1-0 in the fourth after the Joel Flores single gave the Mets a 1-0 lead in the third, Geuri Lubo connected for his first homer to tie things up, while a Moises Febrillet single gave the Cubs a 2-1 lead. With Edward Vargas reaching on an error and extending the lead to 3-1 in the fifth, you had to like where things were sitting for the Cubs at that point. That was until the next three innings when the Mets offense started rolling. With an error leading to the Mets second run, they managed to take the lead in the sixth, Willy Fanas picking up a sacrifice fly and Dyron Campos adding a single. Jefferson Rojas responded by tying things up in the seventh with another sacrifice fly before the Carlos Oviedo double aided the walk-off win for the Mets. Lubo and Febrillet led the way offensively with two hits.
You would think that the Cubs are getting sick of seeing the Yankees so far this season. Not only do they have a good team, but they have handled the Cubs all summer, which continued knocking them off 8-3. Every pitcher the Cubs threw out there allowed at least a run in an overall rough day. Yet somehow, the Cubs had an early lead with Alexis Hernandez picking up the RBI groundout for a quick 1-0 lead. Quick is the key word as the Yankees came back with three in the second and two more in the third to jump in front 5-1. Add in the RBI double Enger Castellano in the fourth, and the Yankees were in command 6-1. Still trailing by that score in the sixth, Yodel Diaz picked up the final RBI with a single to close the deficit to 6-2, but the Cubs would fall by a final score of 8-3. DSL Red had just three hits in the loss as Diaz, Jose Escobar, and Daniel Benschop had the hits. ACL CUBS 8 ACL DIAMONDBACKS 7 (F/10)
DSL METS 5 - DSL CUBS BLUE 4
DSL YANKEES 8 - DSL CUBS RED 3
