Blue Jays Minor League Recap: Keys Powers Up, Tiedemann and Guerra Throw Heat, Stanifer and Perry Strike

Blue Jays Affiliate Overview (August 29-30)

Triple-A Buffalo Bisons
Series vs Rochester Red Wings (Washington Nationals): 2-4
Season Record: 64-67

Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats 
Series vs Hartford Yard Goats (Colorado Rockies): 2-4
Season Record: 56-68

High-A Vancouver Canadians
Series vs Spokane (Colorado Rockies): 4-2
Season Record: 61-65

Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays
Series vs Palm Beach Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals): 4-2
Season Record: 60-62

FCL Blue Jays: Season Complete

DSL Blue Jays Blue: Season Complete

DSL Blue Jays Red: Season Complete

Triple-A Buffalo Bisons

• Season Record: 64-67
• Series vs Rochester Red Wings (Washington Nationals)

August 29: Saturday saw Buffalo ride some hot hitting bats to an early lead against the Rochester Red Wings. Josh Smith and Lenyn Sosa opened the game with singles, Sean Keys showed he can bunt and laid one down to move them over, then Davis Schneider made it pointless by blasting a three-run home run to left field. Buffalo racked up three more singles in the first inning, with the last by William Simoneit bringing home Nick Goodwin to give the Bisons a 4-0 lead. Maxwell Romero Jr. got Rochester on the board in the bottom of the third inning when he launched a moonshot at 40° for a solo home run. In the seventh, Ismael Munguia singled on a line drive to center and drove in Schneider for the fifth Buffalo run of the game. In the ninth, Buffalo got another insurance run, with Schneider scoring his third time of the game, this one on a Yohendrick Piñango double. The six runs were more than enough, as Buffalo got good pitching performances from everyone that went to the mound. Austin Marozas pitched 3.1, surrendering just one run, while Ricky Tiedemann made another appearance out of the bullpen, throwing 1.2 scoreless innings and striking out two. Buffalo won this one with ease after a strong first inning, 6-1. 

August 30: Grant Rogers got roughed up on Sunday against Rochester. Instead of Rogers’ normal near-quality start with giving up a lot of hits and not getting many strikeouts, the Red Wings tagged him early in this one. Rochester was able to get to Rogers with two home runs and a number of hits across the 3.2 innings he pitched. Despite the pitching falling on their swords, Buffalo's bats stepped up and fought to make a comeback. In the first two innings of the game, the Bisons got a solo home run from Sean Keys and an RBI single by CJ Stubbs that scored Lenyn Sosa. In the fourth, following Rochester's big innings against Rogers, Peyton Williams hit his third home run of the season for Buffalo, a solo blast to right-center. Rochester added home runs in the bottom of the fourth and fifth, extending their lead at that point to 8-3. The Bisons had a huge inning in the sixth. Sosa had an RBI double that scored Davis Schneider, Nick Goodwin plated two on a double to center, and Keys plated one on a double of his own. Buffalo trimmed the lead down to one, but then Rochester answered back with another solo home run in the bottom of the sixth. In the last three frames of the game, Buffalo only got a couple of walks, never threatening to score. They fell to Rochester 9-7.

Double-A New Hampshire

• Season Record: 56-68
• Series vs Hartford Yard Goats (Colorado Rockies)

August 29: Nolan Perry was the starting pitcher on Saturday for the game between New Hampshire and Hartford. Perry was excellent, getting strikeouts, racking up seven of them, but he still had some command issues. He walked two batters and gave up four hits and two runs in four innings. The runs came on a Jimmy Obertop single in the second inning, following a walk, single, and stolen base. Eric Snow had an RBI groundout in the third for New Hampshire, and Edward Duran tied the game with a home run in the fourth inning. In the fifth and sixth innings, Hartford added two runs, with the big hit being a Jack O'Dowd home run. Gage Stanifer took over in the seventh inning and struck out six batters over two frames. He did allow a run in the seventh on a weak groundball single to right field. Cutter Coffey brought New Hampshire closer in the eighth inning with a two-run double. Hartford added an RBI single in the ninth to add to their lead. New Hampshire lost this one 6-4. New Hampshire struck out 20 batters in the game, a franchise record for the Fisher Cats.

August 30: In the Sunday finale between Hartford and New Hampshire, the Fisher Cats got a quality start from Austin Cates, who started the game. He went six innings, allowed three hits, surrendered two walks, gave up two runs, and struck out four. The two runs came in the third inning on a Jared Thomas home run. In the seventh inning, an error allowed Hartford to stretch the lead to three runs. In the bottom of the inning, Carter Cunningham launched a home run to right field. Hartford would then add three runs on a balk, sacrifice fly, and a bases-loaded walk. Cutter Coffey tripled home a run in the ninth inning, but it wasn't enough. New Hampshire lost this game 6-2, continuing a woeful August. 

High-A Vancouver 

• Season Record: 61-65
• Series vs Spokane (Colorado Rockies)

August 29: Landen Maroudis was cruising through the first two innings, getting the first six batters he faced out, but faced a ton of trouble in the third inning, giving up three straight singles and a walk, but luckily Ryan Sprock caught a runner stealing second, which kept the score tied zero to zero. Maroudis got the second out of the inning with the bases loaded with a big strikeout but walked in the next batter, allowing the floodgates to come loose. Tanner Thach hit a two-RBI single, then Robert Calaz had another RBI single to make it a four-run inning for Spokane. Colby Holcombe had to replace Maroudis to end the inning, but more runs came in the fourth, as Holcombe gave up a leadoff homer, then another walk hurt the Canadians, which ended up coming around to score on a single. Down 6-0, the Canadians fought back a little, with Jake Casey hitting a two-run shot in the sixth, and Dameury Pena had his first homer as a Canadian to reduce the lead to three, but that was too little too late.

August 30: The home regular season finale kicked off with the team singing the national anthem, which proved to have been of benefit. Silvano Hechavarria ended the season strong in a rough season overall as he gave up only two earned runs in his last 10.2 innings pitched. A throwing error made it so that the Canadians were down three to nothing in the fourth, but Ryan Sprock hit a solo shot in the fourth to break the shutout. Maddox Latta had one himself in the fifth inning to make it a one-run lead, and Rake Casey did it again with a two-run double to come from behind, which ended up being the winning runs, to take sole first place in the second half of the Northwest League standings. This brings their magic number to just three to clinch a playoff spot with six games remaining. 

Single-A Dunedin

• Season Record: 60-62
• Series vs Palm Beach Cardinals (St. Louis Cardinals)

August 29: Postponed

August 30, Game 1: Josh Winckowski started this game as an opener, as the righty is still working his way back from an injury. He pitched 1.2 scoreless innings. The Jays got out to an early lead, Raimundo De Los Santos walking with the bases loaded, then Jake Cook hitting a clutch single that scored two runners thanks to a throwing error by the shortstop. Denis Samudio replaced Winckowski in the second and pitched 3.1 innings with six Ks, but faced some traffic in the sixth inning, allowing three earned runs to make it a tie game. Cook had his second RBI of the game in the bottom of the sixth, however, which ended up being the winning run as Landon Waters got the win with two scoreless innings. 

August 30, Game 2: Jack Nedrow was the starter again and went into the fifth inning, with four strikeouts on the night. The Jays ran away with this one early, as they tacked on seven runs against Cardinals starter Jefferson Moran, capped off by an Aldo Gaxiola grand slam. Jake Bennett had his fifth homer of the season with an inside-the-parker to make it eight to nothing. Nedrow gave up a few hits in the fifth inning to allow the Cardinals to score three runs, but good pitching from the bullpen kept it a dominant win to sweep the doubleheader, 8-3. 

FCL Blue Jays

• Season Record: 38-20

Season Completed

DSL Blue Jays Blue

• Season Record: 20-35

Season Completed

DSL Blue Jays Red

• Season Record: 33-18
• Playoffs: 2-1

Season Completed

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