Alejo Lopez had three hits – including two doubles – as he extended his hitting streak for the Louisville Bats. Edwin Arroyo made a big debut for Chattanooga, picking up three hits and driving in three runs as the Lookouts snapped their losing streak on Thursday night.
It’s a free Patreon preview day! If you are interested in getting emailed every day during the season with additional game notes and a rundown on how the Cincinnati Reds Top 25 Prospects performed (along with other perks) you can sign up to support the site through Patreon and get all of that for a few bucks a month. If that’s something that sounds interesting you can get more information here.
The Louisville Bats lost 6-3. Box Score
- Kevin Newman (rehab) went 1-4 with a walk and 2 strikeouts.
- Jacob Hurtubise went 1-3 with 2 walks and a double.
- Henry Ramos went 1-3 with a walk, double, and a run.
- Matt Reynolds went 1-4 with a run and an RBI.
- Jose Barrero went 1-3 with a walk, steal (17), run, and an RBI.
- Alejo Lopez went 3-4 with 2 doubles and an RBI.
- Brett Kennedy allowed 3 runs in 5.0 innings with 3 walks and 6 strikeouts.
- Alan Busenitz threw a hitless inning with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts.
Game Notes
Jacob Hurtubise just keeps on a keepin’ on. He got on base three more times and is now hitting .357 in September with the Bats while walking twice as much as he’s struck out (10 walks, 5 strikeouts in 12 games). In his 27 games with Louisville this year he’s hit .411/.557/.507.
Henry Ramos has a 5-game hitting streak and in three of those games he’s doubled. He’s walked in six straight games and walked 10 times in the last 10 games.
Alejo Lopez also has a 5-game hitting streak. He’s hitting .344 in eight games with Louisville in September.
Jose Barrero set a career high with his 17th steal – topping the 16 he had back in 2021.
Top Pitch Velocity: Ricky Karcher – 98.6 MPH (ball)
Top Exit Velocity: Jason Vosler – 103.3 MPH (groundout)
Furthest Hit Baseball: Alejo Lopez – 327 feet (double)
The Chattanooga Lookouts won 10-5. Box Score
- Edwin Arroyo went 3-4 with a triple, steal (29), run, and 3 RBI. He was also hit by a pitch.
- Alex McGarry went 2-4.
- Quincy McAfee went 1-5 with 3 runs.
- James Free went 3-4 with a walk, double, 2 runs, and an RBI.
- Francisco Urbaez went 2-5 with a double and 2 RBI.
- Tyler Callihan went 1-3 with a walk, steal (29), run, and 3 RBI.
- Allan Cerda went 1-5 with a run.
- Austin Callahan went 1-5 with a double and a run.
- Cade Hunter went 2-3 with a walk and a run.
- Spencer Stockton threw 2.0 hitless innings with a walk and a strikeout.
- Michael Byrne threw 1.1 perfect innings with 2 strikeouts.
- Jake Gozzo threw a hitless inning with a walk.
Game Notes
The win snapped a 9-game losing streak. It moved the Lookouts to 69-65 and guaranteed them a winning season with just three games left in the regular season. Chattanooga qualified for the playoffs as the 1st-half winner and will face Tennessee in a best-of-three series starting on Tuesday.
Blake Dunn was pinch hit for in his 2nd at-bat. Nothing seemed apparent as to an injury that took place earlier in the game. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Edwin Arroyo didn’t start in either of the first two games he was with Chattanooga, but he announced his presence with authority on Thursday night in his first game action. He tripled in his first at-bat. He then picked up two RBI singles – one in the 6th and another in the 7th.
After a little bit of a slow start in September Alex McGarry, who didn’t start the game but entered to hit for Blake Dunn, picked up two hits for the second night in a row.
James Free is 5-8 with a double, triple, walk, 2 RBI, and 3 runs in the last two nights.
Michael Byrne has allowed one run in 21.1 innings since the start of August. He’s allowed 14 hits, walked just two batters, and he’s struck out 23 batters in that span.
Organizational Notes
Rece Hinds suffered a hamstring injury, which is what landed him on the injured list.
Victor Acosta, who ended the season on the injured list, had a quad strain.
Top 25 Prospects Rundown
9/15 Game Preview
| Team | Record | Time (ET) | Probable | Box Score | Listen | Watch |
| Louisville | 70-69 | 6:35pm | Roa | Here | Here | Here |
| Chattanooga | 69-65 | 7:15pm | Benschoter | Here | Here | Here |
| Dayton | 67-65 | Season | Complete | Here | Here | Here |
| Daytona | 56-72 | Season | Complete | Here | Here | N/A |
| ACL Reds | 28-28 | Season | Complete | Here | N/A | N/A |
| DSL Reds | 28-26 | Season | Complete | Here | N/A | N/A |
Too bad about Hinds. Hopefully he is healed in time for postseason.
You know Jacob’s going good when you go one for three (.333) and your average goes down.
Reds should think out of the box and promote Hurtubise. Need ppl on base to score runs. Send down Martini or cut Renfroe
vs RHP (Hurtubise’s splits vs RHP are even better than his overall stats, .505 OBP & 1.066 OPS this year vs .478 OBP & 0.977 OPS overall)
LF Hurtubise
CF Friedl
DH Fraley
3B Steer
2B India
1B Votto
C Stephenson
RF Benson
SS Elly
I’m already all in on protecting Hurtubise from the rule 5 draft, so why not go ahead and select his contract? Even if he’s a defensive replacement and / or pinch runner, he’s an upgrade over Martini.
Perfectly repeatable scenario to start the game….
Hurtubise walks
Hurtubise steals 2B
Friedl bunts down the 3B line….Hurtubise to 3B
Steer Sac fly. Hurtubise scores. Reds 1-0
Probably right. This team wins by 1 run and loses by 4 runs. When it’s a close game, having on base machines (especially with speed), produce that dangerous and resilient edge this team is using to win.
I’d like to see Hurtubise, and/or Dunn to get called up. The Reds have been very conservative imo, so I doubt we see it. I do think those 2 will become core members of the 24 Reds.
Dunn left early with an injury it appears
Last week, MLB.com wrote an article about how many rookies are making significant contributions. The article speaks to the unique makeup of the team and documents the team’s very aggressive reliance on rookies.
https://www.mlb.com/reds/news/reds-rookies-historic-2023
I saw Dunn came out early, but I didn’t hear a reason why.
@BK, Of all the position players called up, Marte was the only one I felt like they were aggressive with in his timeline. There’s a difference in having high volume, and being aggressive.
EDLC is 21 and in the majors, McLain showed little last year and was promoted after just 38 AAA games, CES had 115 games between AAA and AA, Abbott had 7 starts at AAA. I don’t know that they’ve been aggressive, but while arguable, it doesn’t look like a pattern of conservative promotions.
“I don’t know that they’ve been aggressive“ That’s all I said. If we count the pitchers in this mix it does get more aggressive, but that was more of a product of necessity than anything else.
We can’t go back in time, but midseason promotions to AAA were in order for both Hurtubise, and Dunn. Keeping both down there for virtually the entire season despite their fantastic results in AA is a conservative approach. Now judgement of that approach being the right or wrong way is up for debate.
Every Rookie recalled this season has needed a week or two to adjust to the big stage. In two weeks the regular season is over. It is too late to make any more moves for 2023.
MK, I wonder how much of that is due to the different strikezones (among other things, of course).
Hurtubise is slugging .495 this season, which entirely blows me away. Sometimes with speed guys they can leg out doubles and triples that aren’t especially hard hit, though I suspect that isn’t the whole story. Doug mentioned Hurtubise had attended Driveline to increase his bat speed after 2022, so who knows. I wonder what his average exit velo is. Anyone?
We just don’t have enough data on Hurtubise (we, the public – since we only get FSL and Triple-A data) to have it be all that useful at this point. That said, his max exit velo in Triple-A on 50 batted balls is only 98.0 MPH. He’s only topped 95 four times (7 if we round up). His average exit velo is 80.1 MPH.
With that said, aside from the sample size, average exit velo is not nearly as useful or predictive as the top 10-15% exit velo is. Neither number is all that good for Hurtubise, but again – he’s got a pretty small sample size of data.
Thanks Doug. Great clarification.
Yep, Ichiro’s exit Velocity was only 82-83 in the years that they measured it. Course he was nowhere the player he was late in his career but still almost hit .300 in a couple of those years.