Friday was a busy transactional day in the lower levels of Dodgers minor leagues, one day after the Arizona Complex League concluded its schedule.
Outfielder Eduardo Quintero was the biggest name among the promotions, getting the call to High-A Great Lakes after dominating in Low-A, though he did not play for the Loons on Friday.
The 19-year-old hit .306/.426/.533 with a 160 wRC+ for Rancho Cucamonga, and led the California League in home runs (14), extra-base hits (38), total bases (168), runs scored (73), slugging percentage, and OPS (.959), and was in the top four in walks (65), on-base percentage, and stolen bases (35). He won the league’s player of the month award for May, as well as a pair of weekly honors this season.
Quintero, who was just outside the top-100 prospect lists heading into the season, is now embedded in several top-100 lists at midseason updates. Baseball Prospectus ranked Quintero at No. 28, Baseball America ranked him 60th, while MLB Pipeline tabbed the outfielder No. 80.
Three Arizona League standouts were called up to Low-A and started for the Quakes on Friday in their full-season-league debuts — shortstop Emil Morales, outfielder Ching-Hsien Ko, and third baseman Chase Harlan.
Player of the day
Kendall George stole a base in eight consecutive games before getting stopped on Thursday night, but was back at in on Friday for High-A Great Lakes. After a two-out double in the second inning, the Loons center fielder stole third base and scored on a throwing error by the catcher.
George, whose thievery spree included three steals on each of Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, has a whopping 21 steals in 18 games in July alone, giving him a Midwest-League-best 52 stolen bases on the season.
He’s scored at lease one run in each of his last six games.
Triple-A Oklahoma City
Six runs in the sixth inning off Ronan Kopp and Ryan Sublette gave the Comets a road loss to the Reno Aces (D-backs). Down 6-2 after the mid-game rally, Oklahoma City rallied for a run in the eighth and two in the ninth, but suffered a one-run loss.
Ryan Ward hit his 28th home run of the season, part of a two-hit game.
This was a bullpen game for the Comets, after listing Justin Wrobleski as the starting pitcher for Friday all week in the game notes. It could mean nothing, or it could mean the Dodgers are keeping their options open. Add in Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic on Friday floating the possibility of the Dodgers trading Dustin May — who is scheduled to start Sunday in Boston — and every slight tweak in the next six days could be accompanied by speculation.
Double-A Tulsa
The Drillers didn’t have a hit until the fifth inning and nobody scored until the eighth inning, when three Tulsa doubles keyed a three-run inning to beat the Springfield Cardinals. Ezequiel Pagan doubled and scored the first run on a single by Sean McLain, Taylor Young doubled and Kole Myers singled home another run, then Yeiner Fernandez doubled home the third run on the Drillers’ fifth consecutive hit.
Five Tulsa pitchers combined for nine strikeouts in nine scoreless innings. Luke Fox started and pitched three innings, Christian Suarez got eight outs in the middle frames, and Robinson Ortiz got the final five outs for the win.
High-A Great Lakes
Wyatt Crowell struck out eight in five strong innings to lead the Loons over the Beloit Sky Carp (Marlins). Crowell only allowed a walk and two hits. The second hit was a double in the fifth inning after a two-out error extended the frame, scoring an unearned run, the only tally on Friday against Crowell, who has pitched 11 innings with no earned runs allowed over his last three outings.
Joe Vetrano singled home a pair in the first inning for Great Lakes. Zyhir Hope walked twice and scored two runs in the win.
Low-A Rancho Cucamonga
Quakes pitching allowed runs early and often in a home loss to the Visalia Rawhide (D-backs).
Harlan hit a solo home run in the third inning. Fellow first-gamer Ko singled and walked in his four plate appearances. Morales had a rough go in his first High-A contest, going 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and a two-run error in the field.
Transactions
In addition to the moves listed above.
Low-A: catcher Carlos Avila was sent by the Quakes to the Arizona Complex League.
Friday scores
- Reno 6, Oklahoma City 5
- Tulsa 3, Springfield 0
- Great Lakes 5, Beloit 1
- Visalia 11, Rancho Cucamonga 5
Saturday schedule
- 4:05 p.m. PT: Great Lakes (Payton Martin) vs Beloit (Will Schomberg)
- 5 p.m.: Tulsa (Chris Campos) vs. Springfield (Ixan Henderson)
- 6:30 p.m.: Rancho Cucamonga (Sterling Patick) vs. Visalia (Chung-Hsiang Huang)
- 6:35 p.m.: Oklahoma City (Blake Snell) at Reno (Yu-Min Lin)
Blake Snell makes his fourth rehab start, expected to go about five innings and 75 pitches for Oklahoma City on Saturday. If all goes well, this could be his final outing before rejoining the Dodgers rotation next weekend.