Round Rock rallied from down 2 – 0 to with one run in the 5th and five in the 6th for a 6-2 victory. During the game, J. R. Towles was pulled from the line up after two at bats to allow him to get to Houston. Towles’ call up was due to the concussion suffered by Quintero last night.
“I just wish myself good luck; I don’t want anyone to get hurt….I just came here to work on my swing and get on the right path,” Towles said. “This happened a lot faster than I expected.”
Yordany Ramirez is showing some improvement at the plate. After hitting .192 in April and .217 in May, he hit .266 in June. He has had multiple hit games in 3 of the last 6 and has hit homers in two of the last three.
Corpus Christi couldn’t get the big hit when they needed it in their 6-5 loss to Arkansas. They also got hurt on the bases.
In the second inning, they got RBI singles from Orlando Rosales and Wladimir Sutil, the seventh and eighth hitters, to load the bases with no outs for the top of the order.
But Naturals starter Blake Wood struck out Drew Sutton and got Jarred Ball to hit into a fielder’s choice force at home. Richie Paz followed by drilling a single to left. That brought in one run, but Jose Lopez, the runner on second, somehow didn’t score on the full-count hit. Instead, he and Ball, the runner on second, were both caught between bases, with Lopez getting tagged out at home to end the inning.
“I didn’t think (Lopez) was going to make it, that’s why I put the (stop sign) up,” Pujols said. “He was going to be out at the plate. We know Lopez is not a speed guy and the ball was hit hard.
“I don’t blame (Ball) because he saw the high throw and normally, when you’re running the bases and see the high throw, you keep running. But he didn’t see me stop Lopez.”
Salem helped Jimmy Van Ostrand celebrate Canada Day with a 9-6 victory. Jordan Parraz led the attack with a grand slam in the 2nd inning.
“That was my first grand slam in my whole life. I did it for Canada Day,” he said, with a nod to his roommate.
Lexington scored two in the 11th to earn a 5-3 victory. Bryan Brown had the key sacrifice bunt to plate the 5th run in the 11th. Prior to that, he had been been saddled with the golden sombrero on the evening.
Tri Cities stranded 10 runners and wasted a solid start by Shane Wolf who pitched 5 shutout innings before being lifted.
“It’s one of those nights. We did the best we could on the mound and I can’t blame the hitters — it’s happened to the pitchers before, too. We’ve had nights where we can’t pitch and they hit and vice versa,” Wolf said.
Greeneville jumped out to a 3-0 lead thanks to Rene Garcia’s homer in the 2nd. The Greeneville pitching staff limited Princeton’s bats to only two runs as the G’stros win 3-2.