Cubs Minor League News: AFL Edition |
At long last, the Mesa Solar Sox's losing streak came to an end, and it came against a Salt River Rafters team that knocked off the night before. Despite a shaky outing from Cubs starter Grant Kipp, the Mesa offense stepped up again to bail him out. They overcame an early 3-0 deficit in the first before scoring five times in the third to take the lead for good.
They would go on to score nine times across the third-sixth innings, which was good enough for the Solar Sox to pick up the 9-6 win. As mentioned, Kipp got the start for Mesa as his up-and-down Fall continued. When he is up, he has proven to be one of the better pitchers in the league, but when he is down, he struggles to get outs. Today was one of those outings where the command was good, with one walk and four strikeouts, but the overall success wasn't there, as he allowed four runs in 2 2/3 innings. That pushes his ERA north of 6.00 for the season, as he is doing his best to get back on track. He was the only Cubs pitcher to see any amount of time on the mound, but that didn't matter, as three of the four hitting prospects were in the lineup for Mesa. That included Jonathon Long and Moises Ballesteros as they looked to continue their massive roles in this lineup. Ballesteros was once the top hitter in the Arizona Fall League, but he has gone into a significant funk with the season coming to a close. Sure, participating in the home run derby on Friday is going to be fun, but he would like to produce more at the plate, as his production has gone downhill the past few weeks. His struggles continued on Wednesday, going 1-4 with two more strikeouts, but he managed to drive in one run, ending his longest RBI drought of the season. Speaking of struggles, Ben Cowles has had a rough go of things since the start of the AFL and has never looked comfortable at the plate. Sure, he had a nice three-game run early in the season where he was making hard contact and getting on base, but apart from that it has been a struggle. Like Ballesteros, Cowles has gone through a lengthy stretch without a hit while also striking out more than you would like to see, with two more punchouts. He did manage to connect for his sixth double of the season, and it was nice to see him get on base again. When you talk about players who are not struggling, Long is immediately at the top of the list as he has taken the torch from Ballesteros regarding an offensive leader. As was the case early in the season when Ballesteros was the engine that made Mesa go, Long has taken over that role and is turning himself into quite the hitting prospect as we turn the page into 2025. After getting on base four times on Tuesday, Long continued to reach base on Wednesday as he picked up two more hits to go with a walk to reach base three more times. One of those hits included his sixth homer of the season in the third, as he finished the game with three RBIs to run his total 19 on the season.
