Cornielle looks fantastic through 2 IP. Meanwhile, Manuel Rodriguez (who apparently gets absolutely zero love from the prospect ranking doofuses) is going toe-to-toe with Sykora.
I'll repeat: this young man is SO impressive. Just downright absurd he is so vastly overlooked. Makes zero sense. 4 complete. 54 pitches. 0 runs. 0-0 score.
Oh man, talk about bad luck. A WP bounces behind home plate. Directly off the brick wall behind home plate and lands directly on home plate. EBJ had taken off for home. He was tagged with plenty of room to spare. Unreal bad luck there.
Guilarte looks absolutely lost at the dish since the Down East series began. Swinging at just ugly off-speed pitches. No recognition. Watching good pitches cross the plate with the bat on his shoulders. Swinging at junk.
He's now 3 for his last 20. 12 K's. Ugly.
Three up and three down for RHP Bradley Blalock who is starting to find his stride after that 2-run Wilken jack. He's grabbed several K's tonight. Including a swinging K on a change-up in this same inning.
Rodriguez with another 1-2-3 effective weak contact inning. 0-0 and we head to the 4th. Yophery stranded runners on 2nd and 3rd last inning when he harmlessly popped out to shallow LF.
Indeed. He looks slow and out of synch. Never popped to grab a very gettable bunt single. Slow pop on the steal to 2B. Stole 3B unchallenged. Weak topped ground out to 2B. And, now the PB. Rough two innings for Clancy's 'Put him on the 40-Man!' candidate 🤭
Chattanooga's first run will score on a high heater - likely scored a WP. I would opine Miller needs to catch that pitch. He had his glove on the dirt. They scored it a PB. That's accurate. 1-0 Smokies.
It's pretty clear the Muddies are going to need to try and get to the Nats bullpen. They are getting dominanced by Sykora. They don't know what they're looking for. All sorts of off-balance swings.
Blalock escapes with a K swinging. He had a K looking as well. And a harmless bloop out to Ernesto.
Meanwhile, in Fredericksburg, Rodriguez just plunked a guy and nearly gave up a two-run bomb on a hanging slider. Whew. Lucky there.
Looked like he was safe by a tie to me. I don't know why Darrien Miller was so slow to pop up to chase that bunt. He never even left his crouch. That's now two steals on him this frame to boot.
I love Chattanooga mang. I used to farm in North Georgia in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. I went into Chattahoochee on weekends quite regularly. Beautiful city in a valley.
Daniel Guilarte punched out 10 times in a 2-for-18 week at Down East. He begins his series @ Fredericksburg with a swinging K on a splitter low and outside the zone. Sigh.