Here are the weirdest stats and plays from the past month in the Minors
Welcome to Crooked Numbers, a monthly column dedicated to Minor League Baseball on-field oddities and absurdities. The edition, rounding up the month of August, features RBI explosions, epic sweeps, same-named individuals and, of course, much more. Keeping track of this type of thing is a team effort, so get in touch if you’ve witnessed something weird at a Minor League game (benjamin.hill@mlb.com).
Set ‘em up, knock em’ down
Brandon Sproat, the Mets' second-round Draft pick in 2023 and now MLB's No. 39 prospect, struck out a career-high 13 batters for Double-A Binghamton on Aug. 2. He did this over the span of just five innings against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Blue Jays) and, even more impressive: 11 of those batters were K’d consecutively!
Sproat’s run of K carnage began with the second out of the second inning and continued until he was removed from the game after five. No one in Major League history has ever struck out 11 batters in a row; the record is 10, achieved most recently by Milwaukee’s Corbin Burnes in 2021.
The bad news is that Sproat was removed from the game in a scoreless tie and Binghamton went on to lose, 7-3. The good news is that Sproat received a call-up to Triple-A Syracuse following this dominant outing, having seemingly nothing left to prove in Double-A.
Ten years after
Aug. 2, 2014: Blake Snell, pitching in the Class A Advanced Florida State League against the Daytona Cubs, throws the first no-hitter in Charlotte Stone Crabs history. It was a rain-shortened effort, however, as the game was called after he tossed just 5 1/3 innings. Afterwards, Snell said the following: "I still want to try to go a nine-inning no-hitter all to myself, because you have to go through the lineup three or four times. So that's something that would be the most special to me.”
Aug. 2, 2024: One decade later, to the day, Snell’s wish came true. Now a member of the San Francisco Giants, he pitched a nine-inning no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds.
Double digits Decker
Rancho Cucamonga’s (Single-A Dodgers) 17-5 shellacking of San Jose (Giants) on Aug. 2 was powered by a monster performance by Cameron Decker, who went 6-for-6 with 10 RBIs. Along with Heston Kjerstad's double-digit output for Triple-A Norfolk on April 3, it marked the most RBIs in a Minor League game since Aug. 30, 2000, when J.P. Woodward of the Idaho Falls Chukars knocked in 11.
Decker, who had 10 RBIs in his entire career entering the 2024 season, fell one short of the California League RBI record of 11, set by Stockton’s Robert Rivich on May 22, 1954. Rivich accomplished that prodigious feat despite being removed from the game after five innings!
Just how they drew it up
The Las Vegas Aviators (Triple-A A's) hit seven home runs in their 21-5 win over Albuquerque (Rockies) on Aug. 4, a game in which they scored 10 runs in the third inning and never looked back. But would you believe that that 10-run frame did not include a single home run?
All seven Aviators dingers were hit in the fifth inning or later. Max Muncy led the charge, hitting three home runs as part of a massive game in which he went 5-for-5 with eight RBIs. In case you’re confused, this is NOT the Max Muncy who made his Major League debut in 2015 and currently plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Speaking of!
Max Muncy vs. Max Muncy
Aug. 13 was a monumental evening in baseball history. The Las Vegas Aviators hosted Oklahoma City (Dodgers), and BOTH teams featured Max Muncy in the lineup. As Ben Weinrib put it in his excellent game recap, “Professional Baseball has finally achieved Maximum Muncy.” The elder Max Muncy, on a rehab assignment before returning to Los Angeles, collected a hit in the game. His performance was outclassed by the younger Max Muncy, the A’s No. 8 prospect, who collected four hits and drove in three to propel the Aviators to a 10-8 win. An added bonus? Both Max Muncys (or is that "Muncies"?) were born on Aug. 25, 12 years apart.
Speaking of same-named individuals, we have more where that came from! Consider this from Corpus Christi (Double-A Astros):
Or this, from Everett (High-A Mariners):
He deserved better
Jose Cabrera of the Hillsboro Hops (High-A D-backs) suffered the toughest of tough-luck losses against the Spokane Indians (Rockies) on Aug. 24. The 22-year-old right-hander pitched 8 2/3 innings of no-hit ball and had a chance for the 27th out, but first baseman Kevin Sim made an error on what should have been an inning-ending 4-3 putout. Kyle Karros followed with an RBI double, accounting for the only run of the evening for either team.
Been a while
The Omaha Storm Chasers (Triple-A Royals) defeated the Buffalo Bisons (Blue Jays) on Aug. 20, marking the first time those two teams faced off against one another since the Clinton administration. Or, more specifically: July 20, 1997.
After that ’97 season the league that both teams played in, the Triple-A American Association, of disbanded. In 1998, Buffalo went to the International League and Omaha to the Pacific Coast League, ensuring no matchups between the clubs. In 2021 Omaha switched to the International League, remade as a sprawling 20-team circuit, and it took until Aug. 20 this year for the club to finally play Buffalo once again.
Cardinals flying home
Four teams in the St. Louis organization won via walk-off on Aug. 21, from the Major League Cardinals to Triple-A Memphis to Double-A Springfield to High-A Peoria. The only team that didn’t get in on the walk-off action was the Single-A Palm Beach Cardinals, but don’t blame them. They beat St. Lucie, 9-4, taking the lead for good in the sixth inning.
Sweep? More like a power wash
Minor League teams began playing six-game series against one another in 2021, making sweeps that much harder to achieve. Even harder to achieve? A seven-game sweep. It hardly seems possible, but the Hudson Valley Renegades (High-A Yankees) did just that against the Wilmington Blue Rocks (Nationals), from Aug. 20-26. The series included a doubleheader on Aug. 22, as the teams were making up a game that was rained out earlier in the season. Hudson Valley plated 43 runs in the series, with Wilmington managing just 16.
Greatness behind the dish
A 1-2-3 inning comprised of two singles and a walk seems like a contradiction in terms, but not if the baserunners are feeling feisty and you have a catcher like Lynchburg’s Logun Clark (Guardians) behind the plate. Three Carolina Mudcats (Single-A Brewers) reached base in the third inning of Aug. 29’s game, and all three were caught stealing.
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Weirdness behind the dish
Did you know? If a pitch takes a wayward bounce and gets lodged in a catcher’s chest protector, runners get to advance one base? This happened in the Aug. 24 game between Altoona (Double-A Pirates) and Richmond (Giants), with Altoona getting a fluke run out of the deal.
Kerplunk
Most of the time, using your noggin is a good thing. This was not one of those times:
Out of the dumpster and into our heart
Did you know? Raccoons are nocturnal, omnivorous and able to propel home teams to victory.