Thursday night in Louisville did not go well for the Bats. They got blown out and then some, falling 18-4 to St. Paul. But the game did feature a 2-home run game by Rece Hinds.
The outfielder hit his 10th and 11th homer of the year, which has him tied with Cam Collier for the third most home runs in the Cincinnati Reds farm system (Nick Northcut and Ariel Almonte both have 13).
That poor fan who tried to barehand the first home run didn’t know it came off of the bat of Rece Hinds at 112.1 MPH, but I bet he regrets the decision to try and grab that thing in the air. The second home run didn’t quite match the distance or exit velocity of the first, but it counts just the same (well, it actually counted twice as much since it was a 2-run homer and not a solo homer like the first one).
Hinds, known for his power, had his first multi-homer game of the season. In 2023 he had three such games, with the last one coming on September 1st. Hinds has had at least one 2-homer game in each season of his minor league career except his first season and he only played in three games that season.
Ruben Ibarra’s 10-game hit streak
Things went better for the Chattanooga Lookouts on Thursday night than they did for the Bats. The Lookouts picked up a 6-1 win – a rarity for the club who is now 17-43. Ruben Ibarra had two hits on the night, including an RBI double.
Ibarra got out to a slow start in 2024. In his first 22 games of the year with the Dayton Dragons he hit just .194/.286/.208. But he began to pick things up in early May and hit .423/.559/. 692 over his final nine games with the Dragons before being moved up to Chattanooga. He began his time with the Lookouts by going 0-8, but since then he’s had hits in 13 of his 15 games, including 10 in a row. In his 18 games in Double-A he’s hit .302/.397/.508 with the Lookouts.
Daytona’s dynamic duo
The Tortugas entered Thursday night’s game with a league best 3.43 ERA on the year. That number dropped to 3.37 after Daytona picked up a 1-0 win in 10 innings.
The game was started by Adam Serwinowski. He gave up one hit on the night – an infield single to first base where the batter was able to beat him to the bag for a clean hit. The lefty lowered his ERA to 2.82 with his 5.0 innings of work. Through his 12 starts he’s only given up more than two earned runs twice.
As has been the case in all 12 of Serwinowski’s starts, Nestor Lorant came on in relief. The two have been working in a piggy-back type system all year and once again Lorant picked up where Serwinowski left off. The righty threw 5.0 hitless innings on the night. In his last outing he threw 4.0 hitless innings. Lorant’s ERA is now down to 1.35 on the season in 46.2 innings pitched and he’s given up just 31 hits and walked 11 batters – with two of those walks being intentional. He’s also struck out 55 of the 176 hitters that he’s faced this season.