Brewers Minor League Link Report (8/17): Island Rivalry - Brewers and Cubs to Determine DSL Division Title Tuesday

Bragging rights in the Brewers and Cubs front offices are on the line as Tuesday's Dominican Summer League regular season finales will settle who is crowned the Central Division champ. Both the MKE and CHC teams will qualify for postseason play.

Transactions:

N/A

While there was certainly social media activity regarding the promotions of Luis Pena and the Ebel brothers, no official transactions were posted. They will all be included formally within the Link Report chronicling Tuesday's moves and games.

Final: DSL Cubs Blue 2, DSL Brewers Gold 1, seven innings as scheduled
Box Score and Game Log

Oh, those DSL Standings are now spicy!

The Cubs are 1/2 game behind the Golden Boys entering Tuesday's regular season finale. Both teams are going to be in the round-robin portion of the postseason preceding the formal playoff bracket. That being said, bragging rights are still at stake.

On Tuesday, Gold hosts a 22-32 Pirates Gold squad, while Cubs Blue hosts a 20-35 Tigers 1 team.

The lone earned run 19-year-old RHP Derlin Garcia surrendered was in the 1st inning. In the 4th, a leadoff single blew up quickly after two wild pitches and a wild throw by recently turned 17-year-old catcher Francisco De Marchena allowed the second run to score.

Gold scored their lone run in the 6th of this shortened contest on a fielder's choice, with second baseman Leanders Matos providing the lone hit within the inning.

Shortstop Ricki Moneys singled to lead off the game but was immediately caught stealing for the 5th time in 32 tries.

LF Frandy Lafond singled leading off the 2nd, he was stranded on second base at inning's end and did not return to the field. No indication of injury in the game log, as he only moved from 1st to 2nd when a teammate walked.

MiLB posted this article in 2025, we imagine everything carries over into 2026:

Playoff format coming to Dominican Summer League

"DSL Cup is a playoff format that will see 16 DSL clubs qualify for the two-stage DSL postseason. The eight DSL division winners (based on winning percentage) and the eight teams with the best winning percentage that did not win their division (Wild Card teams) will qualify for the postseason from the 51-team league (31.4% of the league's teams). In Pool Play, the sixteen teams will be divided into four pools of four teams each and will participate in a round-robin competition. The team with the best record in each pool will advance to the Championship Bracket, which will consist of two rounds (best-of-three Semifinal and Final Rounds)."

As the standings link above will show, the DSL Brewers Blue Team is also doing well at 31-23, but perhaps just not quite well enough. There are currently fourteen teams with 21 losses or fewer. Two non-division winners have 22 losses. Blue is among five teams at 23 losses. Can't definitively say that Blue has been eliminated, but it seems bleak at best. The Brewers front office may know more, as last week's shift of a handful of strong prospects to Gold's squad targeted the intention to fortify the organization's for-sure island playoff qualifier.

Final: DSL Brewers Blue 7, DSL Padres Brown 6
Box Score and Game Log

That wild late-inning linescore may give the impression that it was scheduled to be a seven-inning game, but no ghost runners appeared.

17-year-old CF Manny De Los Santos had the honor of ending the game with a bases-loaded single, scoring the one run to seal victory. De Los Santos has a unique .208/.438/.288 line with 28 steals in 30 attempts. De Los Santos has walked or been hit by pitch in 29.2% of his plate appearances. He has also struck out 29.8% of the time, so he sees plenty of pitches. That is quite the profile, and I don't believe we have touched on it often this season.

Shortstop Diego Frontado reached base four times (two singles, walk, HBP). One of six players in the league to have double-digit home run totals (his former Blue teammate Leanders Matos and he each have ten), Frontado and his .989 OPS was "left behind" in the player swap of last week to fortify the Gold squad pre-playoffs.

Three other Brewers reached base three times as your box score review will reveal. One was RF Enrique Lovera, who had the lone extra-base hit for Blue, a double.

This is one of those games where a review of the full game log will entertain as the teams combined to score in ten different half-innings.

Colombian RHP Carlos Galindo (hope his family is well given last week's earthquake) earned his 6th win with an adventurous five-inning effort to close things out, giving up runs in three frames.

In addition to the final regular season DSL games Tuesday, Nashville, Biloxi and Wilson hit the road to begin new series while Wisconsin settles in for a two-week homestand.

Organizational Scoreboard including starting pitcher info, game times, MiLB TV links, and box scores
Current Milwaukee Brewers Organization Batting Stats and Depth
Current Milwaukee Brewers Organization Pitching Stats and Depth

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