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Altoona got rained out, which pushes Joe Musgrove’s rehab start back to tomorrow. West Virginia had a doubleheader washed away.
— Clay Holmes had a rough first inning, giving up all four runs in a 4-1 Indianapolis (14-13) loss to Gwinnett that was shortened by rain to five innings. Holmes recovered to throw four shutout innings, which gave him an abbreviated complete game. He allowed four hits, all of them in the first, and two walks, while fanning seven. Indianapolis had six hits, with Jordan Luplow going 2-2. He’s on an 8-for-16 run.
Kevin Newman: 1-3
Kevin Kramer: 1-3, 2B
Austin Meadows: 0-2
Jose Osuna: 1-2, 2B
Jacob Stallings: 0-2
— Luis Escobar got roughed up in Bradenton’s (17-13) 10-3 loss to Charlotte. Escobar gave up four runs on six hits and two walks in four innings. He struck out three. Arden Pabst’s (pictured) big day went for naught; he homered twice in four times up, his first two longballs of the year. He had only four in 351 ABs prior to this year. Adrian Valerio was 1-4 with a double. Charlotte, by the way, has easily the best hitting team in the Florida State League. Collectively, they’re batting just a hair under .300. The big exception is shortstop Tristan Gray, who’s hitting 188/234/307. So far, it doesn’t look like he’s going to answer the question, “What was Tampa thinking?”
It’s not just the catchers at the major league level who are off to strong starts this year. Here’s what the four regular backstops at the full season teams are doing:
Jacob Stallings (AAA): 319/347/435
Christian Kelley (AA): 290/328/484
Pabst (A+): 352/397/519
Deon Stafford (A): 282/337/474
I don’t know how much of this is real. Kelley and Pabst haven’t shown much at all with the bat before this year, but catcher development can be pretty odd. Both are a little old for their levels; Kelley is 24 and Pabst 23. But . . . catcher development can be pretty odd. Kelley and Pabst are both built somewhat similarly to Michael McKenry, for whatever that means. They both appear to be better defensively.