Brewers Minors: Tough Week for Three Affiliates in Week 7

The Milwaukee Brewers affiliates kept their streak of having at least one prospect win a player of the week award alive last week. They also kept their streak of having a game feature a no-hitter alive, though this time it didn’t work out the way Brewers fans would have liked it.

Three out of the four affiliates lost their series last week while one of them gave up their first no-hitter of the season after throwing two themselves so far in 2021. It’s not quite the “dog days of summer,” but it felt close.

Which Brewers affiliate was able to pick up the series win? Let’s find out in our week 7 minor league recap.

Triple-A Nashville Sounds (26-14, 2nd in Southeast Division)

In May, the Sounds swept the Gwinnett Stripers to kick off franchise record-tying run of 15 straight wins. Last week, Nashville’s luck was different as they dropped three of five in their series against the Stripers with a sixth game being postponed to July due to rain.

If you assumed that the week involved Keston Hiura continuing to mash in Triple-A, you would assume correctly. He went 7 for 19 on the week with four walks, a pair of doubles, and a two-homer game that capped the series off on Sunday.

Hiura wasn’t even top three on the week in hits for the Sounds, though. Hernan Perez had ten hits in the series, raising his season average to .368, Jamie Westbrook had nine, raising his average to .406, and Zach Green had eight.

Could we be seeing a Josh Lindblom sighting in the majors again at some point? He continued his strong play since accepting an assignment with Nashville, giving up his first earned run last week in 19 1/3 innings with the Sounds (0.47 ERA). The Brewers bullpen has looked leaky at times lately, so an appearance by Lindblom with them later this year could be in the cards.

MLB Pipeline’s No. 7 prospect Aaron Ashby also continued his transition from starter to reliever in anticipation of a 2021 call up to Milwaukee and has looked better recently. He gave up one run on three hits and a walk last week and struck out 8 of the 15 batters he faced.

Double-A Biloxi Shuckers (15-27, 4th in North Division)

The month of June continued to be unkind to the Shuckers as they dropped their third series of the month to the Rocket City Trash Pandas, two games to four. The series loss makes it four straight such losses dating back to the end of May.

There was still some offense to be found, though, with Luis Castro leading the way with his nine-hit week that also featured three bombs (but also 11 strikeouts). That earned the Brewers’ farm system yet another player of the week award.

No. 19 Brewers prospect Payton Henry followed Castro with seven hits, including two doubles and a triple, while No. 12 prospect Tristen Lutz and Alexander Palma each had six.

No. 4 Brewers prospect Ethan Small is starting to prove too big for the Double-A stage, possibly setting himself up for a promotion in the near future. He had another scoreless outing last week, giving up three hits and a walk over seven innings with nine punchouts. That dropped his ERA to 1.96 on the season with batters hitting just.184 against him.

Jesus Castillo also threw a scoreless start last week, giving up five hits and striking out five over 4 1/3 innings, though he didn’t pitch long enough to pick up the win on Thursday. That went to Andy Otero, who pitched three scoreless innings in relief, dropping his ERA on the season to 1.10.

High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (18-23, T-4th in East Division)

It was a week to forget for the Timber Rattlers, who lost all five games (one was postponed) on the road to the Quad Cities River Bandits last week. Wisconsin not only scored three runs or less in every game, they actually got no-hit by Quad Cities, a week after throwing one themselves, in Friday’s 9-0 loss.

No. 22 Brewers prospect Thomas Dillard led the way for the Timber Rattlers in hits last week with five and RBIs with three, also adding a triple. No. 27 prospect David Hamilton was second on the team in hits for the series with three, walking five times on the week as well.

On the mound, Carlos Luna had the only scoreless start of the week, giving up two hits and two walks over four innings with four strikeouts in Tuesday’s loss. He hasn’t given up an earned run in his eleven innings pitched (three appearances) since joining the Timber Rattlers.

Low-A Carolina Mudcats (25-15, 1st in Central Division)

We’ve saved the best for last as the Mudcats were the only affiliate to pick up a series victory last week. They won four of five versus the Fayetteville Woodpeckers, scoring an average of eight runs per game over the course of the series.

Joe Gray Jr. was terrorizing opposing pitchers once again, going 9 for 19 in the series with 5 RBIs, four doubles, two triples, three walks, six runs scored, and three steals. No. 11 Brewers prospect Zavier Warren was right behind him with eight hits, including a pair of homers.

We brought him up last week, but No. 30 Brewers prospect Abner Uribe had another strong outing, this time giving up just a hit over three scoreless innings with five strikeouts, picking up his second save of the season and further lowering his ERA to 3.47 on the year.

Three affiliates get to play in the comfort of home next week. Hopefully that will lead to some better results when we bring you next week’s minor league highlights.