José Rodríguez has played more games at Double-A than any other level over the course of his brief, ascendant minor-league career, yet he has fewer homers with Birmingham than he's hit at any other stateside level.
That said, he's doing his damndest to make up for lost time. Rodríguez hit his third homer in four games on Thursday night, giving him four for the season.
Chattanooga 1, Birmingham 1 | Top 2
— Birmingham Barons (@BhamBarons) August 5, 2022
Lead off blast by Popeye evens thing back up at one apiece💪 pic.twitter.com/1dBoydvh44
Updating the scoreboard, he's closed the cap considerably, at least in the raw totals:
- Four over 96 Double-A games.
- Five over 29 High-A games.
- Nine over 78 Low-A games.
- Nine over 44 ACL games.
His season line remains a disappointing .265/.321/.381, but given that he's 21 years old, he only needs to finish his first full year at Birmingham better than he started it. He's on the right track. Through June, he hit just .260/.304/.332. In the 25 games since the start of July, that line is .292/.380/.481.
Birmingham 6, Chattanooga 5 (11 innings)
- José Rodríguez homered for the third time in four games, going 1-for-4 with a walk.
- Oscar Colás did the exact same thing.
- Yoelqui Céspedes went 1-for-5 with a K.
- Weird line for Sean Burke: 3.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 46 of 72 pitches for strikes.
Brooklyn 5, Winston-Salem 1 (6½ innings, rain)
- Colson Montgomery walked twice and struck out once.
- Luis Mieses was 0-for-3 with a strikeout.
- Adam Hackenberg, 0-for-3.
- Drew Dalquist: 3 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, 37 of 57 pitches for strikes.
Carolina 7, Kannapolis 4
- Wes Kath singled once and struck out four times.
- Wilfred Veras was 1-for-5 with three strikeouts.
ACL White Sox 4, ACL Royals 3
- Brooks Baldwin went 2-for-5 with two strikeouts.
- Romy Gonzalez wsa 2-for-4 with his second homer of his rehab stint.
- Luis Pineda, 0-for-5 with a K.
- Jacob Burke hit his first pro homer for his 1-for-4, walking once and striking out twice.
- Jordan Sprinkle went 2-for-3 with a walk.
- Dario Borrero and Victor Quezada both were 1-for-4.
- Yohemy Nolasco: 4 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K
Highlights:
*Here's Burke's blast:
DSL White Sox 2, DSL D-backs Red 0 (5 innings, rain)
- Ryan Burrowes went 0-for-3 with a K.
- Loidel Chapelli was 0-for-2 with a walk, strikeout and stolen base.
- Carlos Jimenez did the same without the stolen base.
- Ronny Hernandez singled and walked.
