The Winston-Salem Dash’s week has been a reflection of their season so far and perhaps of baseball as a whole: they looked real good when they won and real bad when they didn’t, with an even split between the two.
Offensive honors for the week go to 21-year-old Lenyn Sosa, who went 11-for-24 since last Thursday. Sosa, who did not have a good May at the plate, was batting .319/.364/.478 in the month of June and .342/.390/.500 over his last 10 games going into Wednesday’s game. This has rehabilitated his season average to .269/.299/.407; while at least one of those numbers is lower than anyone would like, Sosa has been known to go on extended hot streaks like this before, and it’s not beyond imagination that they improve in duration and frequency as he ages a little more.
Yolbert Sánchez continues to swing a hot bat as well, going 9-for-24 since last Thursday; he even showed off some rare power, going deep twice in one game on June 22 as part of a 4-for-6 effort (no other extra-base-hits all week, though). In the month of June, Sánchez is batting .368/.427/.529 with seven walks and 11 strikeouts—contrasted with a line of .222/.317/.250 through May—and it would not be surprising if a promotion was coming soon. He’s been playing a pretty even mix of shortstop and second base (with Sosa generally handling whichever position he’s not), with three errors at short and one at second.
The way things are going lately, if Duke Ellis made it on base at all in any way, you might as well assume that he either stole a base or tried to. The center fielder stole FOUR bases after going 3-for-5 with a walk on June 22, five in the course of the week overall, and 18 on the season to date, caught just four times; this has catapulted him to the league lead in stolen bases.
Catcher Evan Skoug hasn’t been playing every day since his return from a brief Charlotte stint, but he’s been making good use of the time he’s had, 9-for-21 with two doubles, a triple, and three home runs in seven games since then. However, he was removed from yesterday’s game mid-inning in the eighth after playing a wild pitch, so hopefully that doesn’t turn out to be anything serious. He’s been splitting catching duties with Tyler Osik, who hasn’t been hitting very well since his promotion from Kannapolis earlier this month, but who did at least have a Dash OBP of .355 going into Wednesday’s game.
And of course, Yoelqui Céspedes is here! Whatever visa issues the number one international prospect had preventing him from assignation to an affiliate are apparently no longer a concern; while the preseason assumption was he’d start in Birmingham, he’s a level beneath in Winston-Salem, at least for now. He went 0-for his first-9 with one walk and four (!!) HBPs before going 2-for-4 with a walk and three runs scored yesterday. So far, he has only DHed.
Luis Curbelo’s slump continues, despite a couple days off; he’s 2-for his last-26, with both of those hits at least going for extra bases, a double and a triple. After a strong May, Curbelo is hitting just .154/.222/.277 in June. Alex Destino has found more life in his bat than that, but not too much, at .217/.299/.435 for the month (Destino did hit his seventh home run of the year on June 19). Both players’ season OBP is below .300.
Ian Dawkins returned from a brief stint on the Injured List and is 1-for-3 with two walks in one game since.
On the pitching side of things (some call it a “mound”), the Dash got the usual production from the usual candidates, and some unusual production from unusual candidates as well. Jerry Burke has been either excellent or knocked around pretty badly, and this week he was excellent, a five-inning, one-hit start with no runs and no walks. He spent the first half of his season to date pitching long relief and now seems to be firmly ensconced in the rotation (tune in next week, when Burke will have made four relief appearances).
Meanwhile, Taylor Varnell is just doing what he does, pitching at a level that suggests he might be comfortable in the High-A East League. Varnell has appeared nine times this season (six starts) and, at least from his innings load alone, it seems like they’re trying to slowly stretch him out—two innings in his first appearance, three in his second and third, four in his fourth, fifth, and sixth, and now five in each start since then. Perhaps next week he will throw six innings, an exciting thought. He has allowed more than three hits in an outing exactly twice this season, and never more than six of them. This week, he put down his obligatory five-inning-four-baserunner line, although despite allowing just one run, he was tagged with the loss.
Not doing as well was Davis Martin, uncharacteristically, who threw 31 pitches in just 0.2 innings on his June 18 start. He allowed four hits, four runs, and one walk, hitting a batter with a pitch and inducing strikeouts for the two outs he got. This was a big departure from his norm, inflating his ERA from 2.60 in 34.2 innings to 3.57 in 35.1 innings after. The same goes for Johan Dominguez, who allowed a whopping nine runs on nine hits in just two innings in his start on June 22. Before that start, he had a 3.18 ERA over 39.2 innings; now, it’s 4.97 over 41.2. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, statistically, it’s that it is June and we’re still only about a month and a half into the season.
Kaleb Roper is a recent call-up from presumably instructional league play in Arizona; drafted in 2019, he mostly pitched out of the Great Falls bullpen to great effect. In his limited time so far with the Dash, he’s relieved once and started twice, but doesn’t seem to quite have a handle on the league so far as he’s allowed multiple runs every outing. As a result of this, Isaiah Carranza pitched out of the bullpen instead of starting a game this week, which actually ended up being his second-best outing of the season, one run on four hits and no walks over five innings.
The “normal” bullpen had a pretty middling week. Dan Metzdorf was very sharp on June 17, striking out six over three scoreless innings, but allowed two runs in 2.2 innings on June 23. Caleb Freeman earned a save on June 17 with two scoreless innings, but allowed a run on a hit and two walks on June 22. Cooper Bradford and Edgar Navarro had similar weeks.
Ryan Williamson allowed a run in one of his two outings, but it was unearned. Luke Shilling was finally shown to be mortal, allowing runs at all for just the second time in his career (spanning 14 appearances to date) and a home run for the very first time; the three runs he gave up on June 20 help him to an ERA of 2.65, five runs total in 17 innings. He’s still walking guys (4.2 BB/9) but he’s also still striking out guys (13.2 K/9).
Brian Glowicki continues to impress. Signed by the Sox at the end of May this year, Glowicki spent a shortened 2020 pitching for the then-independent St. Paul Saints. He finished the year with a 2.78 ERA over 32.1 bullpen innings, with a 0.897 WHIP, 1.9 BB/9, and 10.0 K/9. With his scoreless 1.2 innings yesterday (four strikeouts, no walks), his season line stands at 11 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 19 K. The downside here is that Glowicki is 26 years old, which is significantly older than the league average; hopefully, he’ll be dominating in Birmingham before too long.
The “Wackiest Game of the Week” Award goes to the team’s loss to the Asheville Tourists on June 22. The Dash found themselves in a 9-0 hole after two innings, clawed their way back to make it 12-5, then scored eight runs in the sixth to take the lead, 13-12. Their bullpen allowed a run in each of the next three innings, though, so despite a two-run rally in the ninth, the final score was Tourists 15, Dash 14.
Looking ahead, the Dash finish up their series in one ‘ville and head to another, saying goodbye to the Tourists and hello to the Greenville Drive, whom they’ll be visiting for a six-game set going into July.
Photo credit: Anders Johanson/FutureSox
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Ms. Brady.. I was at the game on 6/22.. WS.. was only able to tie the game in the 6th (12-12) before the bullpen gave up 3 runs… The real spark of the game was Duke Ellis.. The tall, lanky kid definitely does NOT look like a base stealer.. but he was a big part of the comeback. WS also ran themselves out of rally’s getting thrown out twice after hitting balls off of the short right field fence.. RE: Céspedes getting HBP 4 times.. (3 on 6/22), I was wondering ‘was it something that he said?’ (Will he still be with WS on Friday?) Fun night, beautiful stadium.. Plus, nice to see Danny Farquhar!
Hi Lewis, thanks for the comment! I haven’t been able to get out to the park as much as I’d like this season, so I appreciate the in-person report. You picked a pretty good night to go, despite the result–glad you had fun and saw some exciting hitting to boot!