Cannonballs coming: Meadows extends hit streak, Polo HRs

The DSL Pirates were off.

-- Trevor Williams continued to struggle, but Indianapolis (33-30) got a two-out, walkoff double in the ninth from Josh Bell and beat Syracuse, 5-4.  Williams gave up four runs, two earned, in six innings on 11 hits and a walk.  He struck out two.  Williams didn't help himself with his glove, as he committed three errors.  The Indians trailed 4-2 going into the final inning, but rallied to tie the score before Bell ended it.  For the game Bell was 2-5.  Others:

Alen Hanson:  1-4, BB
Max Moroff:  2-4, BB
Adam Frazier:  1-5, 3B
Jason Rogers:  1-4
Willy Garcia:  2-3, 2B (batting .377 in June)

-- Altoona (33-29) blew a 1-0 lead in the ninth and lost in walkoff fashion to Reading, 2-1.  Cody Dickson threw five shutout innings, allowing three hits and three walks, and striking out five.  Dickson has a 1.16 ERA in his last seven starts (not counting one rough relief appearance), although with some shaky peripherals and high pitch counts (89 in this game).  The Curve lost, though, when Brett McKinney gave up a walk and two singles following an error by Chris Diaz with one out in the ninth.  The Curve had only five hits, most of them by Harold Ramirez, who went 3-3 with a walk.

Austin Meadows went 1-4 with a double to extend his hitting streak to 21 games.  In that time, Meadows has gone 34-for-82.  Over two-thirds of those hits --  ten doubles, eight triples and five HRs -- have gone for extra bases.  Overall, that's a line of 415/473/915.  He's stolen five bases in six tries, while walking ten times and striking out 12.  Meadows is the third-youngest hitter in the Eastern League with at least 61 ABs.  The two who are (slightly) younger trail him in OPS by about 250 points.  (Reese McGuire and Ramirez are also among the league's ten youngest hitters.)  Meadows is fourth in slugging on the season.  Two of the hitters ahead of him (one is JaCoby Jones) have played fewer than half as many games as Meadows and are both three years older.

-- J.T. Brubaker had a shaky introduction to high A as Bradenton (34-27) lost to Clearwater, 4-1.  Brubaker gave up four runs on seven hits in five innings.  He walked one and struck out four.  The Marauders had just four singles.  Others:

Cole Tucker:  1-4
Jordan Luplow:  1-3, BB

-- Tito Polo! (yes, that is Him in the photo) hit his organization-leading 11th HR and Mitchell Tolman drove in three runs as West Virginia (31-31) beat Columbia, 5-2.  Polo, Tolman and Ke'Bryan Hayes all went 2-4, with Tolman and Hayes each getting a double.  Starter Bret Helton gave up a run on three hits in five innings.  He walked three and struck out four.  Others:

Carlos Munoz:  0-4
Daniel Arribas:  0-4