Chicago Cubs Minor League Wrap: September 16

Hello all, another Ashley minor leagues recap, I hope you didn’t mind the last one! Rest assured Josh will be back to regularly scheduled programming soon.

It was an interesting night at the park for the two Cubs’ affiliates taking the field tonight. Let’s take a look at what went down with the Iowa Cubs and the Tennessee Smokies on this fine Saturday.

Iowa Cubs

The Iowa Cubs had a tremendous 7-5 win against the St. Paul Saints. The pitching matchup was Patrick Murphy for the Saints against Caleb Kilian for the Cubs.

Iowa got on the board early as Jared Young hit a triple in the bottom of the first, then a Matt Mervis double brought him home. Luis Vasquez reached on a fielding error with the bases loaded, scoring Mervis and David Bote, and just like that the Cubs were up 3-0.

In the bottom of the second a Chase Strumpf home run brought the score to 4-0.

In the third, a Brennen Davis single scored Bryce Windham. Then a Cole Roederer sac fly scored Luis Vasquez and the Cubs were up 6-0. The Saints started to fight back in the sixth with Gilberto Celestino scoring thanks to a throwing error from Windham. Austin Martin then came home to give the Saints two runs for the inning. In the bottom of the sixth the Cubs got one back as Jared Young singled to bring Chase Strumpf home 7-2 Cubs.

The Saints got an additional three runs in the top of the eighth off a Michael Helman double, a groundout, and a sac fly to bring the score to 7-5, where it would remain for the rest of the game.

A solid outing overall except perhaps for reliever Brandon Hughes who was responsible for three of the Saints' runs.

Tennessee Smokies

The Smokies took it late with an extra-innings outing against the Rocket City Trash Pandas.

A quick overview of the game saw the Pandas taking an early lead and holding it for much of the game. A David Calabrese home run scored two in the third. A Tucker Flint solo home run in the fourth added to the score. The fourth was a busy inning for the Pandas as a Gabe Matthews single scored one, D’Shawn Knowles tripled to score two, so by the end of the inning it was 6-0 Trash Pandas.

In the fifth they added one more on an Arol Vera sac fly, and so the Trash Pandas had managed what appeared to be an insurmountable lead after five innings.

The Smokies started to climb back out of the depths of their would-be shoutout in the bottom of the fifth. Christian Franklin tripled to score three runs, BJ Murray Jr singled to score one, Kevin Alcantara hit a sac fly to score one, a Pablo Aliendo double scored another, then a James Triantos single scored yet another. If you don’t feel like counting, at the end of the fifth, the game was tied 7-7 as the Smokies staged one heck of a comeback.

The score stayed tied until the end of regular play. In the tenth Tucker Flint scored an RBI on a groundout, but in the bottom of the tenth an Andy Weber sac fly scored D’Shawn Knowles to re-tie the game.

In the bottom of the eleventh a BJ Murray Jr walk-off single wrapped the game up with a final score of 9-8.