Brewers Minor League Link Report (6/21): Mudcats Cruise as Another Prized 18-Year-Old Arm Makes a Carolina Debut

For those of you who are standings-focused, Nashville wraps up the first half of their AAA season on Sunday, with the second half commencing on Tuesday. There doesn't appear to be a dangling carrot incentive for the first-half champion Timber Rattlers and Mudcats in the second half other than pride, in fact Wisconsin's Chris Mehring confirmed for me this morning.  No extra postseason home games or such.

"The format for the 2024 Postseason at Double-A, High-A and Single-A will consist of four teams per league in a best-of-3 Division series, followed by a best-of-three Championship series. The four playoff participants per league will be the winners of each division from both halves based on the best winning percentage of each half. In the event the same Club wins both halves, the Club with the next best winning percentage in the second half will advance."

Transactions:

• Milwaukee Brewers optioned RHP Bradley Blalock to Biloxi Shuckers
• Nashville Sounds placed RHP Taylor Clarke on the 7-day injured list
• Nashville Sounds released CF Chavez Young
• Nashville Sounds activated OF Joey Wiemer from the 7-day injured list
• Nashville Sounds activated LHP Darrell Thompson from the Development List
• Biloxi Shuckers activated LHP Russell Smith from the 7-day injured list

Chavez, a professional since debuting in 2016 as a 17-year-old with the Blue Jays, turns 27 on July 8th. The native of the Bahamas was in his first season in Milwaukee's system, having spent 2023 on the Pirates farm upon being acquired by Pittsburgh from Toronto in a minor January 2023 trade. Details on Young's .626 OPS and 7 steals in 11 attempts with Nashville are available at the player page link above. Young had just been interviewed last week by the Sounds' Jeff Hem, available here as part of Jeff's weekly blog collection. Wishing Young well, he discussed the connection he has to his family in that chat.

Taylor Clarke's IL placement, injury status not made known, is a setback regarding upcoming future big-league pitching depth.

Nashville Pre-Game Media Notes
Final: Nashville 7, Durham (Rays) 4
Box Score and Game Log

Via the Sounds’ website, game details, and we encourage readers to review affiliate write-ups as part of their Link Report routine:

Bottom of the Order Carries Nashville to a Win in Front of Sellout Crowd - Brian Navarreto returns to the lineup with two hits, two RBI in 7-4 victory in front of 10,222 fans

From the game story above:

"Tonight was the latest (by calendar date) the Sounds have had their first ejection of the season in the First Horizon Park era."

That was Sounds manager Rick Sweet, ejected by HP umpire Mike Rains (7th).

Speaking of the game story, that's a crack Nashville staff, quickly finding historical nuggets to plug in. Their years-long database and the ability to include such notes within 30 minutes of last pitch is impressive. It's another reason to give the extra clicks to the game summaries like we always suggest.

The Sounds roster is full, in fact, it appears it's one above the max at 29, likely in that Oliver Dunn is still en route from the West Coast. Look for another move on Saturday. Plus remember, Eric Haase is still technically on the Milwaukee taxi squad, and with Brian Navarreto back (and in style, well done!), the catcher spot is certainly full, and a Nick Kahle Development List adjustment is probably not far off. Ok, enough playing farm director.

Chris Roller contributed with two RBI via groundout and sacrifice fly, but my goodness, that OPS is at .549 through 147 at-bats. The Crew has multiple options for flexibility on the fringes of the 40-man roster.

Plenty of home game video highlights on the "X" feed for this one, both with the bats and the gloves.

Biloxi Pre-Game Media Notes
Final: Rocket City (Angels) 7, Biloxi 2
Box Score and Game Log

Shuckers Win Streak Snapped by Trash Pandas in 7-2 Loss - Warren drives in two with a two-RBI double in loss

This veteran Link Reporter gets a warm fuzzy when the affiliate is back in greater Huntsville, Alabama. So many great memories, especially as the Fielder-Weeks-Hardy-Hart core made their way through.

The Biloxi bench included usual starters Mike Boeve, Eric Brown, Jr., Carlos D. Rodriguez, and Darrien Miller. Newcomers Adam Hall and Casey Martin are still settling in and received starts. The bulk of Hall's career has been spent in the infield, but this was his 26th career appearance in center field, so it's not a reach to see him start there for Rodriguez.

The mound work wasn't stellar by any means, but the parade of relievers did pick each other up, stranding five of six inherited runners. It was a somewhat difficult return for southpaw Russell Smith, who retired two of the first three he faced before walking two and allowing an infield single that saw two runs score (error on catcher Andy Yerzy a factor).

Craig Yoho fans - sacrifice fly allowed to score a run upon entering an inning prior to Smith, then a strikeout swinging, night done.

Shutout averted at the last possible moment -

Wisconsin Pre-Game Media Notes (download link)
Final: Fort Worth (Padres) 5, Wisconsin 4
Box Score and Game Log

Mears Beats Rattlers With Walkoff Homer - TinCaps blast their way past Wisconsin 5-4

Might as well show you what negated Matt Wood's top of the 9th temporary heroics. Admittedly, this was an impressive down-to-your-last-out blast.

Mears, as Chris Mehring noted in the game summary, hit his third home run of the series. The 48th overall pick in the 2019 draft out of a Washington state high school is only a .218 hitter for his pro career, but more than half of Mears' 212 hits have gone for extra bases (.461 career SLG).

Five Timber Rattlers reach base at least twice, with DH Jesus Chirinos collecting three singles.

Luke Adams was 1-for-2 in SB attempts, now 17-for-25 in that department. Gregory Barrios was successful in his one swipe attempt and is now 14-for-20 in that regard. Player development encompasses so many areas.

23-year-old RHP Will Childers had not allowed a run, nor even a hit, in three appearances since being sent to Wisconsin from Biloxi to take over as the Timber Rattlers' closer. Shake this one off young man. Childers, for the veterans among us, has longtime Brewers ties (son of Matt Childers, nephew of Jason Childers, each of whom pitched in the Midwest League for the Crew with Beloit). Matt would make his MLB debut with Milwaukee in 2002, later pitching a bit for the Braves three years later. Jason got his cup of MLB coffee with Tampa in 2006.

Final: Carolina 10, Columbia (Royals) 2
Box Score and Game Log

Mudcats Blitz Fireflies

Scoreless through four frames, the Mudcats scored in each of the final five innings, 2-2-1-3-3 as the linked linescore shows, nice.

5-for-14 with RISP, and two sacrifice flies, which are often overlooked during the RISP analysis on a nightly basis.

Welcome to full-season ball, Enniel Cortez!

Cortez only turned 18 years old May 1st, yet here he is. The Nicaraguan RHP has 81 strikeouts to only nine walks in his 74 innings of action. This is one of the quickest Dominican Summer League to A-Ball promotions for the Brewers in some time, as Cortez made only seven appearances (five starts) with Maryvale. Despite a 5.55 ERA in those efforts, his 27-to-3 K-to-BB ratio in Arizona earned him this opportunity, and as his pretty box score line shows, a nice Mudcat debut here.

We know the Brewers invest the majority of their international bonus dollars on the position player side (as do most organizations). But my goodness, they continue to unveil promising arms, and the youthfulness and level relative to that youth presents a very exciting pitching pipeline future for us to follow.

We see you, RHP Miguel Briceno. The usual 3B-2B-1B finished the rout with a scoreless 9th. But this wasn't his first mound foray. Briceno made two Maryvale pitching appearances last year. He has a .257/.304/.349 line in 2024, we'll have to see if anything more comes of this. If nothing else, Manager Nick Stanley has a ready mop-up arm at the ready.

Did we mention Carolina scored ten runs here? Enjoy the every-single-batter contributions throughout that box score link.

Here's the one road game highlight made available:

Final: ACL Dodgers 9, ACL Brewers 7
Box Score and Game Log

The A-Crew scored six in the 8th to cut an 8-1 deficit to one, but the momentum did not carry over to the end.

That 8th inning was very rookie-ballish. Hey, a new word!

BB-BB-BB-RBI groundout-K-BB-HBP-1B-2B-K.

The single was off the bat of Eric Bitonti, in his 2nd game back after a 12-day injury absence. Bitonti played third base on Wednesday, and was the DH here, deferring to rehabbing Christian Arroyo at the hot corner.

That $1.385 million bonus given to corner infielder Johan Barrios may come to fruition someday, but you really have to squint to see it. Barrios' 2024 is almost entirely based on drawing walks (24 in 103 plate appearances), and his double here was his first of the season, yikes (one prior triple, three prior HR's). Johan Barrios (not to be confused with impressive Wisconsin shortstop Gregory, he of the $1 million bonus himself), is playing the corner infield spots, where XBH's will need to be a part of his game.

Arroyo, by the way, is still looking for his first 2024 hit (0-for-8 in Nashville, 0-for-7 with Maryvale), three walks sprinkled in.

Add five wild pitches to the very uneven Brewers pitching lines and listed ERA's in the box score.

Final: DSL Athletics 8, DSL Brewers #1 Squad 6
Box Score and Game Log

Hey, not fair, Oakland has only one DSL team - oh, you Athletics.

Team Uno bookended their linescore, three runs in the 1st, three runs in the 9th.

Fourteen games into the schedule, it's impressive to see the four OPS over 1.000 in the box score, and each of those youngsters contributed in this one.

Shortstop Luis Pena (.489/.558/.689, sheesh) tripled and walked, drove in two, but was somehow thrown out on a stolen base attempt (now 20-for-21 in that category in 12 games played).

17-year-old Panamanian RHP Lukas Gonzalez is unscored upon over six innings in his three appearances (despite a 1.50 WHIP). This was his first pro start. The United Nations aspect of this organization is so fascinating, other MLB teams are likely equally diverse, but the Brewers do excel in the reach of their international player searches.

Final: DSL Guardians Goryl 4, DSL Brewers #2 Squad 1
Box Score and Game Log

Only three hits for Team Dos, one of them a double. But congratulations are in order, that double belonged to 17-year-old RF Frandy Lafond, in just his second pro game. That was his first career hit. Lafond is a Dominican native, wonder if friends and family took advantage of the free seats.

17-year-old RHP Christopher Peralta, Freddy's cousin, continued to impress in this, his third pro appearance.

Weather: 84 degrees, Sunny.

It's automatic, either 84 or 85 and sunny every day until we get deeper into tropical storm season.

It's a Logan Henderson Saturday. It's a Yujanyer Herrera Saturday, and a Josh Knoth Saturday. Oh, Aaron Ashby too, which always adds intrigue. The DSL kids have yet another sibling rivalry matchup. Catch you Sunday AM, folks.

Interested in learning more about the Milwaukee Brewers' top prospects? Check out our comprehensive top prospects list that includes up-to-date stats, articles and videos about every prospect, scouting reports, and more!