Cannonballs coming: Cal Mitchell heating up

Altoona was off.

— Indianapolis (4-3) edged Buffalo, 2-1. Tyler Eppler threw four shutout innings, then departed after a rain delay. He gave up three hits and a walk, and struck out one. Johnny Hellweg threw two scoreless innings to get the save. He gave up two hits and two walks, and fanned three. So far, in five innings he’s given up two hits and three walks, and fanned six. The Indy runs scored on a solo HR by Jose Osuna, his first, and a triple by Chris Bostick. Osuna was 1-3 with a walk and Bostick 2-4.

Kevin Newman: 2-5
Kevin Kramer: 0-4
Austin Meadows: 1-4, 2B
Max Moroff: 0-4
Jacob Stallings: 1-3, BB

— Bradenton (6-2) beat Lakeland, 5-4. A.J. Schugel made a rehab appearance and had some trouble in his one inning due mainly to bad defense. He gave up two unearned runs on one hit, with one strikeout. Oddy Nunez, who was sort-of the starter, followed with five innings, giving up one run on five hits. He walked one and struck out one. Adrian Valerio went 1-3 with his first HR and Hunter Owen was 3-4, although he also made an error that started the rally against Schugel.

Jared Oliva: 1-4, 2B, BB
Bligh Madris: 1-4
Bo Schultz: 2 IP, K

— West Virginia (3-5) lost to Hickory, 6-2. As an aside, it’s worth keeping in mind that the Power have a very young team. By weighted average age, the team’s hitters are the youngest in the South Atlantic League and their pitchers are the third youngest. According to Baseball America, West Virginia has four of the league’s eight youngest players: Mason Martin, Rodolfo Castro, Lolo Sanchez and Cal Mitchell (pictured).

Anyway, in the game, Travis MacGregor was unable to repeat his strong first start, although some bad defensive play in the infield was the main reason. MacGregor came out after one inning due to a high pitch count. He allowed four runs, all of them unearned, on three hits and a walk, while striking out two. Mitchell continued his good start to the season, going 2-5 with a double and his second HR. He’s now hitting 296/375/704. Mitchell did strike out three times, but he has only six so far in 27 ABs. Strikeouts were again a team-wide problem; a day after fanning 18 times in ten innings, the Power fanned another 17 in nine.

Sanchez: 1-5
Dylan Busby: 1-3, BB
Deon Stafford: 0-3, BB
Martin: 0-3, BB
Castro: 1-3, BB
Oneil Cruz: 1-4, 2B
Blake Weiman: 3 IP, 3 H, 2 K