Cubs Minor League News: AFL Edition |
Talk about an offensive explosion for the Mesa Solar Sox. After dropping a pair of games where the pitching wasn't at its best, the Solar Sox turned the tables against Salt River Rafters and scored 11 runs in the first inning to break things open before rolling to a 17-4 victory.
What stands out the most about this win is that it was one of the best offensive showings of the season for Mesa, and they did that without arguably their two best players, Moises Ballesteros and Jonathon Long, who were given the night off. Even with those guys out of the lineup, the Cubs still had a pair of prospects seeing action and that all started with starting pitcher Luis Rujano. Coming off his worst outing of the Fall, Rujano got back to business on Thursday as he tossed a pair of strong innings, allowing just one run on two hits. He walked one and struck out three as his ERA is at 3.86 for the season. Rujano is one of those guys who bounced between a starter and a reliever the past two seasons, and the Cubs long-term plans for him are to become a starter again. Even at his worst, he did enough to pick up the win as he improved to 3-0 following this start and will continue to anchor the top of the Solar Sox rotation the rest of the way. Without Long and Ballesteros, there is usually not much attention being put toward the Solar Sox lineup, but given how Ben Cowles has been playing lately you may need to start paying attention to him. Had it not been for his horrific start, Cowles would be right up there with Ballesteros and Long, but he has been the odd one out because of his start. You have started to see him put things together over his past 10 games, but after going 0-4 with two punchouts in this one, he got back to his old habbits and saw his average fall to .236. The goal for him the rest of the way is to find more consistency and to get back to the player he was before breaking his wrist this season. Another name that was added to the Mesa roster made his season debut as David Avitia got some work at catcher. Another one of the many young prospects eager to get more work this fall, Avitia made quite an impression in his debut as he went 4-5 at the plate and drove in his first two runs of the season. He followed the trend of strong season debuts by Cubs prospects and it will be interesting to see how many more games he will get this Fall.
