Cannonballs coming: Mitchell Tolman homers twice

-- Steven Brault threw five shutout innings, and Josh Bell and Austin Meadows both went deep, as Indianapolis destroyed Toledo, 11-1.  Brault was making his second start after returning to AAA and it went much better than the first.  He gave up four hits and two walks, and struck out six.  Brault came out after throwing only 72 pitches, so his workload is probably still a little restricted.  Bell's HR was his 12th and Meadows' his second in AAA.  Bell finished 2-3 with a double and three RBIs as well as the HR.  Meadows went 2-5.  Pedro Florimon broke the game open with a grand slam, his second HR of the year.  He went 2-4 with a double and five RBIs.  Others:

Alen Hanson:  1-5, 2B
Max Moroff:  1-5, 2B
Jason Rogers:  0-4, BB
Willy Garcia:  2-4
Jose Osuna:  lined out in first AAA AB
Trey Haley:  IP, H, BB, 2 K
Kyle Lobstein:  2 IP, 2 H, ER, 2 BB, K
Dovydas Neverauskas:  IP, 2 H

-- Tyler Eppler threw six shutout innings as Altoona (44-34) beat Bowie and its veteran lineup, 6-2.  Eppler gave up four hits and a walk, struck out six, and threw 61 of 91 pitches for strikes.  Harold Ramirez went 3-5 with a double, raising his average to .300.  Kevin Newman was 1-3 with a walk, leaving him at .302 since his promotion.

-- Bradenton (41-34) lost to Jupiter, 3-2.  Yeudy Garcia had a good start, but was hurt by two unearned runs.  He allowed three runs in all, in six-plus innings.  Garcia gave up six hits, walked nobody, fanned six, and threw 62 of 90 pitches for strikes.  Tito Polo came out of the game after grounding out in his second AB; I don't know whether he got hurt, failed to run out the grounder, or what.  Others:

Jordan Luplow:  1-3, 2B
Kevin Kramer:  0-3, BB

-- Mitchell Tolman (pictured) went deep twice to power West Virginia (40-37) to a 4-2 win over Columbia.  Tolman finished 2-3 with a walk and three RBIs.  The HRs were his fifth and sixth.  Bret Helton gave up two runs on four hits and a walk in six innings.  He fanned six.  Others:

Casey Hughston:  2-4
Daniel Arribas:  0-2, 2 BB

-- Morgantown (7-7) lost to Batavia, 4-3.  Cam Vieaux gave up two runs, one earned, on five hits and three walks in four innings.  He struck out three.  The Black Bears had only five hits, two by Kevin Mahala.  Others:

Sandy Santos:  0-3, BB
Will Craig:  1-4

-- Bristol (5-3) got blanked by Burlington, 6-0.  Starter Ike Schlabach had control problems, giving up four walks to go with four hits and four runs, three earned, in three and two-thirds innings.  He struck out three.  Victor Fernandez went 3-4, but wasted most of it by getting picked off twice.  Others:

Michael De La Cruz:  2-3, BB
Adrian Valerio:  0-4

-- The GCL Pirates (2-3) lost to the Tigers West, 7-3.  Starter Brian Sousa was undone by a string of errors in the fourth and fifth innings.  He ended up allowing six runs, five of them unearned, on five hits and three walks in four and a third innings.  Sousa struck out five.  One of the Tigers' other runs was unearned as well, as the Pirates had five errors, three of them by Victor Ngoepe.  Edison Lantigua went 3-4 and Yondry Contreras 2-3.  Both are off to good starts, which is helpful because they're the two most promising bats on the team and both are coming off rough seasons.  Nelson Jorge hit his second HR.  Others:

Vince Deyzel:  2 IP, H, ER, BB, 4 K

-- The DSL Pirates (7-16) lost a wild one to the Yankees1, 15-12.  Adonis Pichardo started and gave up six runs, five earned, on seven hits in five innings.  He walked none and struck out four.  The Pirates hit their first two HRs of the year.  Rudy Guzman was 3-5 with a grand slam and five RBIs.  Rodolfo Castro had the other HR.  He went 1-4 with a walk and three RBIs.  Christopher Perez was 2-3 with a walk.  To provide a little context, Guzman is a 24-year-old outfielder who originally signed 5-6 years ago and got caught, through no fault of his own, in ID Verification Hell.  He has no records from before age 12 and, as a result, can't be cleared to come to the US.  Perez got a moderate bonus from the Pirates last year but had a terrible season at the plate and in the field.  So far this year he's hitting .391 with decent gap power.  Others:

Eddy Vizcaino:  2-5, 3B
Samuel Inoa:  0-4, BB