Rays prospects and minor leagues: McKay quiet in debut

Today’s minor league recap is going to have a slightly different feel to it. I am selfishly only going to talk about significant individual prospect performances. No game break downs. Just prospect talk.

Triple-A Durham Bulls (57-36)

Coming off a 4 hit day, Jake Bauers reached base 4 times again today with a 2-3, 2 BB performance. Over his last 10 games he’s slashing .314/.442/.486 and is seeing a lot of time in the corner outfield positions.

Curt Casali had a busy day, collecting a double and a walk at the plate while also contributing a pickoff and strike-em-out-throw-em-out double play behind it.

Double-A Montgomery Biscuits (50-44)

LHP Logan Darnell is a minor league veteran, amassing more than 800 innings pitched, but he is new to the Rays organization. Yesterday he pitched a 7 inning, 4 hit shutout on just 89 pitches in which he induced 14 ground outs. Someone to keep an eye on as possible lefty pitching depth.

All Joe McCarthy does is hit. He’s been doing it since the Rays drafted him in the 5th round in 2015, even as he recovered from back surgery right out of college. He went 3-4 tonight with a double, triple and a walk. Over his last 10 games he’s slashing .324/.468/.486 and is getting a lot more time in the outfield corners now that 1B Dalton Kelly is his teammate. Sound familiar? His season seems to be quite similar to that of Jake Bauers, though Joe is a level lower and a few years older. McCarthy had a 147 wRC+ on the season going into the day and that surely went up after said fantastic performance at the plate.

Class A-Advanced Charlotte Stone Crabs (42-47)

Kevin Padlo recorded his first hit since returning from injury on July 13th, and in true Kevin Padlo fashion it was a home run. Also true to form, he took a walk as well. It’s nice to have him back and healthy in the organization. Keep raking, Kevin.

Class-A Bowling Green Hot Rods (46-45)

Looks like yesterday was pretty much the Garrett Whitley show for Bowling Green. He went 3-4, including a home run, double and a walk. The home run was his 8th on the year and 5th in July. He’s slashing .288/.431/.635 this month and .324/.432/.730 over his last 10 games. He’s got work to do on the strikeout rate, but everything else is pretty encouraging.

Short-Season Hudson Valley Renegades (9-16)

Not much to note from this game other than 2017 first round draft pick Brendan McKay going 0-4 with two strikeouts as the DH in his debut. It’s been a long year for McKay, so I’m keeping expectations low until next year.

Rookie Princeton Rays (10-14)

A couple of 2017 draft picks in Carl Chester and Trey Hair reached base 4 times each at the top of the Princeton lineup yesterday. The center fielder Chester went 4-5 with a double, while 2B Hair went 3-4 with his 3rd home run and a hit-by-pitch. Chester hasn’t shown a whole lot of power, but he’ll get on base a lot and should do well on the bases. Hair has slashed .290/.395/.522 so far since being drafted so it will be interesting to watch and see if he can sustain anything close to that. If so, that will be an obvious steal in the 34th round of the draft.

Check out this page for all of yesterday’s organizational box scores, and then go to this page to check out today’s match ups.