AAA OKC Dodgers:

The OKC Dodgers dropped 4 games of the 6 game series to Reno this past week and are now 28-20 on the season. Zach McKinstry leads the team in batting average, recently promoted Kevin Pillar was the leader in OPS and Jake Lamb leads the team in RBIs. Starting Tuesday, May 31, OKC will be traveling to Round Rock for a 6 game series with the Texas Rangers AAA affiliate.

Kevin Pillar: Congrats to Kevin Pillar for getting called up to LA. He is a California boy, so this is a dream come true for him and he certainly hopes he has found a permanent home. Pillar was hitting .315 with an OPS Of 1.034 with AAA OKC so he earned his way back to LA!

Zach McKinstry: McKinstry leads OKC in batting average, has an OPS of .914, and is doing everything he can to get back to LA for good. He is also the focus of the latest main feature Monday so click the picture on the left to hear from McKinstry himself and learn all about his journey through baseball.  If McKinstry does end up defining a permanent role at the MLB level it will surely be as a super-utility player. So far in OKC, he has played every position other than 1st base, center field, pitcher, and catcher with the bulk of his work coming at shortstop where he has a fielding percentage of .931 at that position.

Ejections in OKC! Ryan Noda was called for a check swing that was very questionable, Mike Wright Jr. yelled a magic word from the dugout and got ejected, Travis Barbary then defended his player and got tossed himself, and play by play voice, Alex Freedman, was spot on with his call! That about sums it up!

Ryan Noda: Ryan Noda had 2 hits Sunday including his 7th Home Run and 26th and 27th RBIs. Noda’s home run came after a very bad check swing call, in which Mike Wright Jr. and manager Travis Barbary both got ejected. Noda is a prospect with a world of power as he led all of AA Central last year in home runs and RBIs and he was 2nd in AA Central in walks. He was one of the 2 players to be named later in the Ross Stripling trade and has brought a lot of value to the Dodgers.

Omar Estevez: Estevez hit his 1st home run of the year Sunday, then, just a couple of innings later, hit his 2nd. Estevez has struggled this year with an average of just .219 and an OPS of .662, so hopefully, Sunday is the spark he needed to get going. Estevez is a 24-year-old from Cuba that played a lot of short stop early in his stint with OKC and is now a utility guy that can play both the infield and the outfield.

Ryan Pepiot: Pepiot got his 3rd big league start on Friday evening and gave up 1 run in 4.1 innings and now has an ERA of just 3.18 at the MLB level.  He has been optioned back to OKC and can be recalled and optioned just 1 more time before he has to stay in LA for good. Pepiot had a mix of shapes to his pitches. His slider had a 2-7 shape, fastball was 9-3, changeup was 10-4 with tumble and fade and his breaking ball was 12-6. His understanding & ability to sequence these different shapes & locations together in succession is Elite! Click the picture on the left and hear from Pepiot himself as he joined Dodger Poke and talked about his MLB debut.

Mark Washington: Congrats Mark Washington for getting promoted to AAA OKC. Washington has been completely dominant in Tulsa and has simply been one of the best relief pitchers in all of baseball. Washington’s ERA is all the way down to 1.11 and his WHIP, walks, and hits per inning is 0.78. Washington is 6’7 so he knows how to use vertical drop and tunneling to his advantage and is super effective.

Caleb Ferguson: Ferguson, according to AAA OKC PxP, Alex Freedman, threw an “immaculate inning”  on Saturday as he came in with inherited runners and left them stranded. Ferguson was featuring his fastball at 96 and a sweeping slider that was very effective. Ferguson has been recalled once earlier this month, and then optioned back down, so I imagine the Dodgers will use all 3 times they can do that with him this year before they decide whether he sticks permanently in LA in 2022.

Michael Busch: Busch is one of the best young hitters in the game and just recently got promoted to AAA where he hit a home run in his 2nd at-bat. Busch is hitting .275 with an OPS of 1.008 overall between AA Tulsa and AAA OKC but is hitting just .195 in AAA but it is nothing to be concerned about. He had periods last year where things were somewhat slow as well with Tulsa as he hit just .173 in June, then took off and got insanely hot to finish the season. Busch joined Dodger Poke and talked about his progress in the system and where he learned to hit, so click the picture on the left to see his feature, and don’t forget to click the interview that is linked at the top.

Miguel Vargas: Vargas, like Busch, is one of the best young hitters in the game and is one of the best right-handed hitters I’ve seen at using all fields. Vargas had his average above .300 but has come back down lately with a 2-18 patch in his last 5 games. He is the reigning AA Central hitting champion and so he has shown his elite hit tool and is getting more and more comfortable at 3rd base.

Garrett Cleavinger: Cleavinger, like Ferguson, McKinstry, Lamb, Martin, Alvarez etc….is also in a Fringy AAAA stage of his career. He put on a slide piece show in OKC on Saturday night en route to 2 scoreless innings. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last 5 appearances with OKC which spans 6.1 innings. Click the picture on the left to see what his stuff looked like Saturday night.

Andre Jackson: Jackson had his best outing of the year on Thursday as he went 4.0 innings and didn’t allow an earned run. Jackson is a very talented pitcher that didn’t pitch much in college and, quite frankly, has struggled in OKC in 2022. His ERA is 7.36 so far, but he is looking to capitalize on the momentum he created in his last performance and use it as a springboard to a very good remainder of 2022.

Jason Martin: Martin is making a lot of noise in OKC with a .300 average and an OPS of .936. He is hoping to find a role in a crowded outfield in LA. after he spent all last year with Texas and hit over .300 in his last 40 at-bats at the MLB level. He was kind enough to join Dodger Poke and tell his story so check it out by clicking the picture on the left and don’t forget that the interview is linked at the top.

Jake Lamb: Former All-Star, Jake Lamb is the leader in home runs for all the players that have been with OKC for the full year. Busch has 13 on the year, but he just recently got called up. Lamb is hitting .273 in OKC with an OPS of .900. The Dodgers will have to decide what to do with him at some point this year as it has been reported by Juan Toribio of MLB.com that he has 2 opt-out clauses in his contract, one in May and one in July.

AA Tulsa Drillers:

The Drillers split their 6-game series with Springfield over the past week and are now 27-17 on the year. Devin Mann has been smoking hot as of late and now leads the club in batting average at .306, Jacob Amaya continues to have the highest OPS at .983, and Ryan Ward is the leader in home runs and RBIs with 13 and 33 respectively. The Drillers are at San Antonio this week for their 6 games series against the AA affiliate of the Padres. As an aside, the Drillers pitching staff has the highest average velocity in all of the Minor Leagues averaging 94.4 miles per hour.

T-Town Magic! Gotta start the Drillers section with, easily, the most exciting moment of the week with the Kody Hoese walk-off. The Drillers were down a run and Hoese knocked in 2 to give the Drillers the dramatic walk-off win. Click the picture on the left to see the walk-off for yourself.

Brandon Lewis: Lewis went 2-2 Sunday to finish out the series with Springfield, and he did so after replacing Kody Hoese who came out due to injury. Lewis hasn’t quite gotten on track yet in 2022, but he will, and just know, last year he hit 30 homers and led the org. in home runs per at-bat. Sometimes in basketball, a scorer just needs to see the ball go through the hoop to get some positive momentum. Comparatively, In baseball, in baseball, a great hitter like Lewis just needs to see a couple of balls hit the outfield grass, like he did last night, to get going. Click on his name to see him in action Sunday and click on the picture to view his full feature.

Justin Yurchak: Justin Yurchak had 3 hits Sunday in the finale against Springfield. He is off to somewhat of a slow start, but he did the same thing last year as well. In 2021 he hit 0.95 in May, then ended up hitting .365 for the season. Remember, baseball is a marathon! Click on his picture to see his feature cut and click on his name to see his last action.

Jordan Leasure: Leasure struck out the side for the AA Drillers in his 1 Inning. Leasure was sitting 95-96 and touched 97 on a couple of occasions.

Jacob Amaya: Amaya is having his best year as a pro as he is putting together power numbers to match batting average and on-base percentage. Some think he is the best defensive shortstop in the system so take a look for yourself by clicking the video on the left. Click on the picture to view his full feature, including an interview at the top, and click on his name to view his feature cut.

Kody Hoese: Hoese left the game Sunday with an undisclosed injury, which is unfortunate because he has been on a tear. Hoese has raised his average by 81 points in his last 16 games & is all the way up to .281 to match his tremendous defense at 3rd base. Hear from Tulsa PxP, Dennis Higgins for yourself on the type of defender Hoese is.

Bobby Miller: Bobby Miller had his longest and best outing of the year Saturday against Springfield. He left the game with runners on 1st and 2nd in the 7th after 5 of his 6 innings went 1-2-3 He K’d 5 and walked none. Both of those runs scored, but it was most definitely an impressive outing as he reached 101 on multiple occasions and also featured his change-up, a hard-breaking ball in the upper 80s and a softer breaking ball in the lower 80s.

James Outman: James Outman led the game off Saturday with a hit on the first pitch, then Jacob Amaya knocked him in. Outman is now hitting .277 with an OPS of .934. Outman has also been a model of consistency at the plate as he only had 5 games in both April and May in which he did not record. Click the picture to view his full feature including an interview linked at the top, and click on his name to his him in action from this past week.

Jose Martinez: Jose Martinez threw a 2nd great outing in a row this week and went 5.1 innings scoreless on the heels of his last performance where he went 5.0 and gave up just 1. Martinez features a fastball that can hit in the 96 range, a slider, and change. His ERA is 5.61, but that is deceptive because he gave up 9 earned runs in his outing on May 15, and that is an outlier, so that has skewed his ERA. He has put up zeroes in 5 of his 11 appearances, so take away the outlier and his numbers would be really good.

Devin Mann: Devin Mann has continued his hot ways at the plate and has his average all the way up to .290 and his OPS up to .960. Mann has hits in 5 of his last 7 games and is 9 for 24 during that stretch, .375 with 2 homers, 5 RBI and 19 total bases. Click on his picture to view his full feature and click on his name to see him in action from this past week.

Andy Pages: Andy Pages had 2 hits in the first game of a doubleheader for Tulsa on Friday and that snapped a 12-game hit streak which was the longest of the season for any Driller. Pages is a projected everyday outfielder at the Major League level and has a world of power as evidenced by his 31 home runs last year. He also plays really good defense and has mainly stayed in right field this year, but has played all 3 outfield positions in the past. Click his picture to see his feature story and click his name to see him in action from the past week.

Landon Knack: Landon Knack had a really good mix going in his last outing for AA Tulsa. His fastball was 95-97, his Slider was 88, and he was 83 on the Change-Up and 80 on his Curveball. Knack is an East Tennessee State alum and is one of the top pitching prospects in the organization. In his last outing, he went 6.0, struck out 4, walked 0, and gave up just 1 earned run. His ERA on the year is just 2.81 and he has 22 strikeouts to only 3 walks so far in 2022. Click on the picture to view his full feature, click on his name to see action from his last start.

Ryan Ward: Wardo as he is known is tied with Johnny Deluca for the organizational lead in home runs at 13. Ward played his college ball at Bryant where he hit .409 his Sophomore year. He is one of the best young hitters in the system and is absolutely fantastic at using the whole field. Click the picture to view his full feature which includes an interview linked at the top, and click on his name to see him in action from this last week.

Nick Robertson: Nick Robertson is starting to get loose! He made easy work of the Cardinals in the 8th on Thursday and hasn’t allowed a run in his last 3 outings. His fastball sits 94-96 and can bump a touch higher than that with some adrenaline, and his change-up slider mix has been on point as well. Click on the picture to view his full feature which includes an interview linked at the top. Click on his name to view his most recent interview where he gives an update on 2022.

Clayton Beeter: Beeter is a pitcher out of Texas Tech who has some of the best stuff of any pitcher in the organization. He has the big 4 seam, big breaking curveball, change up and harder breaking ball. He is coming off of Tommy John and 2022 is a big year for him because he is getting back to full pitch counts. Click the picture to view his full feature, which includes an interview linked at the top. Click on his name to view him in action from this past week.

Gavin Stone: Stone just recently got called up and has put up blanks in his 2 starts with Tulsa. This University of Central Arkansas grad is a “soon to be” rock star in this organization because his talent, combined with his charisma and “small-town” charm is going to keep knocking doors down. Click the picture to view his full feature, which includes an interview linked at the top. Click on his name to view him in action from this past week.

Jose Hernandez: Like Stone, Hernandez is new to Tulsa as he just got called up this week. Hernandez left Great Lakes as the Midwest League leader in saves with 8 and put up a  0 in his 1 outing with AA Tulsa. Hernandez can hit 97 with a sweeping slider and change and he has used that mix to register a very low 2.05 ERA and 1.09 WHIP.

High A Great Lakes Loons

The Loons just completed a week in which they were 2-4 at South Bend and now have an overall record of 25-20 on the season. Eddys Leonard leads the team in batting average and OPS at .270, and .852 respectively. Johnny DeLuca leads the team in home runs with 13 which ties him with former Loon great, Ryan Ward for the organization’s leaders in home runs. DeLuca also leads the team in RBIs with 26. Great Lakes will be home for their 6 games series this week against Fort Wayne.

Great Lakes Comes Back: Great Lakes trailed 8-6 going into the 7th, then hung a 7 spot. Here’s the sequence: Zabala, DeLuca, Vivas walk, Leonard RBI single, Ramos RBI single, January 2 RBI double, Valera sac fly, Zabala RBI double, Wild Pitch. The Loons held on to win 13-10.

Loons Offensive Approach: They use the middle to the opposite field extraordinarily well. I.E.  6 of their 9 NON-home run hits on Saturday, as seen in the video, were center or oppo. They have a great approach to hitting, so job well done!

 Johnny DeLuca: DeLuca hit his league-leading and organizational leading 13th homer of the year Sunday for Great Lakes. Deluca is tied with Ryan Ward now for the organizational lead in home runs and also has the most amount of RBIs of any Loon. DeLuca was drafted in the 25th round out of Oregon in 2019 and has proved to be an absolute steal.

Julian Smith: After giving up a leadoff base hit, LHP Julian Smith put up blanks in his 1.1 Sunday night. He was 95 with the fastball with a good slider and change. Smith is a lefty who was a 15th rounder from 2018 out Catawba Valley Community College and has posted a 4.43 ERA with a 1.52 WHIP.

Michael Hobbs: The video linked on the picture is from a Cool sequence in which the 10th Rounder out of St. Mary’s won an 11-pitch at-bat hitting 95 with the fastball. That’s GRITTY, which is just my style! Hobbs went 2, gave up no runs and K’d 2, and has an ERA of 3.92 with a very good WHIP of 1.26 on the year. Hobbs very well may be the #1 steal from last year’s draft.

Jorbit Vivas: Vivas had 2 hits Saturday and Sunday for the Loons. Vivas now has 12 multi-hit games in May. If you’ve noticed a theme with the Loons hitters, they use the middle of the field to the opposite field as well as any team I’ve seen. Well done!

Jose Ramos: Ramos had 2 hits in the Loon’s win last Saturday as well. He now has hits in 15 of the 23 games he has played in May & has his average at .270, OPS at .883 and we all know what kind of defense he plays. Ramos is one of the fastest risers, IMO, in the org.

Eddys Leonard: Leonard is one of the top prospects in the Dodgers organization and he had 2 hits in Saturday’s game and 1 on Sunday. Leonard now has 10 multiple-hit games in the Month of May and is hitting .270 with an OPS of .852.

Ryan January: The January Journey is on track as the Great Lakes catcher had 2 doubles and 3 RBI Saturday in the Loon’s crazy win over South Bend. January, at the time, had hits in 3 games in a row and had raised his average by 16 points in the last 9 games. 

Imanol Vargas: The Loons 1st baseman has some serious power! Click the Picture to watch the tape-measure shot he hit off the JumboTron!

Ben Casparius: Congrats to Ben Casparius for getting called up to High A Great Lakes. Casparius is a young pitcher out of UCONN who I’ve been singing the praises of for a while. He has Big Stuff and a huge future! Click the picture and watch the slider cut under the hands of lefties and the fastball ride away from them. I love this kid’s stuff!

Ryan Sublette: Sublette is one of my favorite young pitchers to watch in the organization. He has a side-slot delivery and has been really effective with a 3.20 ERAl He is a 7th Rounder out of Texas Tech, so click on his picture and take a look at the action from his performance last Wednesday.

Jacob Cantleberry: Cantleberry is a lefty out of Missouri who, before Friday’s game, hadn’t allowed an earned run in 3 of his last 4 outings. Click the picture and take a look at the lefty in action.

Kyle Hurt: Kyle Hurt has been on a K spree! He now has 17 k’s in his last 3 outings spanning 10 innings and only 1 walk during that time. He also has given up just 1 earned run during that period and went 5 scoreless today and has his ERA all the way down to 1.74. He was a 5th Rounder in the 2020 draft out of USC and is really coming into his own. Click the picture and watch the K spree for yourself.

Low A Rancho Cucamonga:

Low A Rancho Cucamonga just finished a series with Visalia this past week in which they went 4-2. Damon Keith has had a tremendous year so far and is surely in line for a promotion as he leads the squad in batting average at .329 and also leads the team in OPS at .998. The Dodger’s #1 prospect in the organization, catcher Diego Cartaya, leads the club with 31 RBIs and has rebounded nicely after somewhat of a slow start. After a couple of really good starts in which he showed off his ++ secondary stuff, Ben Casparius got promoted to High A Great Lakes, so good luck to him.

Jake Vogel, Yeiner Fernandez, Alex DeJesus, and Damon Keith all had 2 hits last Wednesday for Rancho. Huei-Sheng Lin, a 23 Taiwanese pitcher went 4 scoreless innings in a 10-3 Quakes win. The Dodger’s #1 prospect, Diego Cartaya, had 5 hits in 17 at-bats over the past week which included a home run, a triple, a double, 5 RBI, and 11 total bases. Edgardo Henriquez threw 5 innings in his last start on Saturday and was dominant. The young Venezuelan didn’t allow a run and struck out 7. Along the same lines, Jerming Rosario hurled 4 scoreless innings on Saturday and struck out 5 as well.

Here are some headlines from the week: Damon Keith and Julio Carrion each had 2 hits apiece and Luis Rodgriguez had 3 on Saturday, while Maddux Bruns threw 1.2 scoreless innings in the Quake’s loss to Visalia. Damon Keith had 2 more hits on Thursday for Rancho to raise his average to .336 at that time, and, Ben Caspariius out of UCONN had another great outing for the Quakes in what proved to be his final for Low A Rancho Cucamonga. Julio Carrion had a good week as he had 7 hits in his 23 at-bats against Visalia which included 2 home runs, 8 RBI, and 14 total bases. Alex DeJesus had another good week as he had 6 hits on the week and had a hit in all but 1 game. Luis Diaz had possibly his best week of the year with 7 hits and 8 total bases, and Luis Rodriguez finished the week strong by collecting 5 hits in the last 3 games which included a home run a double, and 9 total bases.