The Winston-Salem Dash have gone 4-2 since last Thursday and, as that record indicates, had some solid performances in that span. They improve to 14-12 overall, good enough for third in the division, although the season is young, it’s a tight spread, and also it’s High-A ball and doesn’t really matter.
Like Kannapolis, Winston-Salem has been struggling at the plate; those struggles did continue going into this week, but strong pitching and an awakening of bats in the last two games played (11 and 15 hits respectively) contributed to the good showing. The offensive nadir here came early, on May 27, when the Dash were only able to pick up three hits against an honestly not great Hickory Crawdads team.
That was one of two shutouts this week, the other also a 4-0 loss to the Crawdads three days later (but at least they got four hits that time). Currently, they’re two games and two wins into a series against the Greensboro Grasshoppers, having split the prior series against the ‘Dads.
THE HOT
Duke Ellis was the dark horse of the week, slashing .368/.454/.526 over six games. Ellis, a left-handed center fielder, was a victim of the shortened draft last year; he signed with the Sox shortly thereafter as a minor league free agent. This is part of a larger hot streak for Ellis, who was 6-for-his-first-45 with 15 strikeouts, but has an average over .300 and OBP approaching .400 with only nine strikeouts in the two weeks or so since then. It’s hard to know what to expect from Ellis overall; even with the live bat, his season line is only .236/.306/.315.
Yolbert Sánchez was the week’s other offensive standout, heartening news after a slow, power-less start. The power is actually still not really there, but Sánchez did double his double total to two. While he’s still looking for his first professional home run and triple, his slash line in the five games in which he played this week was a robust .353/.450/.412, bringing his season average to .237/.326/.263, reminiscent of Ellis’ line. Obviously, it’s small sample size city here all around, but the two multi-hit games and the one strikeout are certainly encouraging signs, even if the .589 overall OPS isn’t.
Ian Dawkins is back in the Carolinas after starting the season in Birmingham, where he could have done better but certainly could have done much worse (.246/.297/.362, 2 HR), given the recent history of Sox prospects in AA. Dawkins had a strong year in Kannapolis in 2019 and has immediately made a splash with the Dash, going 5-for-11 with a triple, a home run, and a stolen base in his first two games.
It’s kind of silly to highlight good weeklong performances and even sillier to do so for pitchers, who don’t play everyday, but nevertheless, we forge onward. Johan Dominguez has been the surprise in the rotation, sporting a 2.63 overall ERA in 24 innings (0.708 WHIP). He turned in the best start of the week on May 29, when he went six innings and allowed one single as his only baserunner, striking out six.
Davis Martin, who threw five no-hit innings a couple starts ago, gave up three runs but none of them earned in 4.2 innings on June 1, walking two and striking out seven. Jerry Burke had a similar experience on May 27, going five innings and allowing two runs, but both unearned (his second start of the week was not as sharp, with four earned runs coming in four innings).
Nobody appeared more than twice out of the bullpen this week, a sign of an evenly-used relief corp. The newly-promoted Trey Jeans led (relieved?) the charge, throwing 4.1 scoreless innings of two-hit ball, both striking out and walking three. These were his first two completely scoreless outings of the year; Jeans left behind eight innings and nine runs (six earned) in Kannapolis.
Mountainous righty Lane Ramsey got a rare start on May 28, turning in two scoreless innings with just one hit and no walks allowed, then struck out the side in a perfect relief inning on June 1. Luke Shilling was finally tagged for a couple of runs, the first of his professional career, but bounced back with two scoreless in his next appearance.
THE NOT
Luis Curbelo’s bat has cooled after a torrid start, going .192/.250/.308 with one double and one triple, although he likely won’t be down for long. While Alex Destino did hit two home runs on June 1 and only went hitless in one game over the week, his overall season line is down to .237/.297/.452 as he went just 6-for-24 over his last six games.
Lenyn Sosa is also trying to find any heat in his bat, managing just three hits in 19 at-bats entering Wednesday, when he did go 2-for-3 with a walk. The rest of the team not mentioned is in a similar boat; I can’t say for sure without spending more time on research than I can really afford, but it sure seems like the MLB offensive slump is being mirrored in the minors. Even so, the Dash are on the low end of the scale.
The team made eight errors in this one-week span, at least one per game until Wednesday, which was finally clean; seven of these were by different players (and two were by Sosa).
OF Luis Mieses, 1B Harvin Mendoza, and 1B/C Tyler Osik were all reassigned to Kannapolis after struggling mightily; RHP Brian Glowicki, LHP Jeans, 3B AJ Gill, and OF Dawkins came up.
THE TAKEAWAYS
Small samples are fun to play around with but don’t say a lot about a player’s overall performance. As a team, since the beginning of the season through Tuesday, the Dash are slashing .202/.276/.328 (for comparison, first-place Rome is hitting .241/.317/.353, and last-place Hickory is at .192/.285/.290). We’re almost a month in and so far, the Dash don’t really have any must-see offensive standouts, although Curbelo and Destino have certainly looked very good at times.
On the mound, there are a couple of mostly relief prospects who have the potential to develop into Guys as tends to happen so often in the Sox minors, though they’re not quite there. It’s still early yet, and there’s plenty of time for the bats to find their barrels in support of the pitching. Join us next week, when we’ll have one more week’s worth of better knowledge about what these players are capable of.
Photo credit: Anders Johanson/FutureSox
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Noticed that Bryce Bush has been placed on Injury Report. Is it known what type of injury he sustained and is he close to returning?
Enjoying Future Sox!
Hi Gary, I’m not sure on either question. His last two games played were on May 12 and May 20, so based on that I’m guessing he’s going to be out for a little while longer while they try to make sure whatever it is gets fully resolved.