Maikel Franco was 2-5 with his 11th home run – he’s cooled off a little bit in July, OPSing just .723 even aided by the spike from last night. If he finishes in that neighborhood for the month, he’ll likely not quite make it to .700 for the year, but after the two horrific months he had earlier, even an average August after that monster of a July would be a good sign in my book. Aaron Nola put up easily his worst start since his debut – 3R on 6 H 3HR 1BB 2K in 4IP. Kelly Dugan was 4-8 with a triple and Aaron Altherr was 3-6 with a home run (13) plus a walk and his tenth steal. Altherr’s got four homers in his last six games, and Dugan’s OPSing 1.038 in August. Dugan especially should be an Arizona Fall League candidate. Colt Murray got roughed up in his inning – he gave up two inherited runs and four of his own – they were his first earned runs since July 4, so credit where it’s due, that was a heck of a streak – around 17 IP.
Roman Quinn hit his fifth home run of the year, and Brian Pointer was 2-5. JPC did not play. Hopefully he’s back in action tonight, as Jim Peyton doesn’t indicate it was more than a night off in his game report, (which includes GCL notes as well – so don’t miss it). For Lakewood, Pullin, Astudillo (back in left field again) and Walding all had multi-hit games. Walding hit his sixth home run. Cozens and Knapp were also both on base twice with a single and a walk a piece. Jia Tromp had three hits as WIL was swept in their double header. Austin Davis allowed three hits and struck out three in 2.1 scoreless IP for GCL. He’s got 22:6 K:BB in 23.1 IP. Pretty good. Would be better if he were doing it against reasonable competition for a college junior, but I’m not going to complain too much about nice numbers. We’ll see where they place him in the spring. LKW would be the easy guess, but CLR would not be out of the question if he performs well in camp.
