Minors

Carolina lost a second straight heartbreaker. Wisconsin received help from three MLB rehabbers to win a second straight game. Biloxi couldn’t keep up with Pensacola’s firepower. Nashville kept it close, but managed just one win in their loss.

Coming off essentially a week and a half of wedding preparation and ceremonial bliss on my farm with a mere one day of recovery felt a little challenging in my return to covering the teams we all love. But, man, that changed quickly when I watched Biloxi and Wisconsin fight tooth and nail for late victories. Tyler Herb continued his erratic starting performances in Nashville and, well, Carolina, literally gave up A home run and that was the ball game. One hit. One run. Game over. Let's get into the recaps.

Nashville began their homestand in style, as did Biloxi, though we now have concerns with Sal Frelick and an upper leg injury. Wisconsin is crawling to the first-half finish line, yet we still have much to digest there in terms of video and audio. Carolina is clinging to the slimmest of first-place leads with just two games remaining in the playoff chase. All four rookie-level clubs played, only one fared well. Here we go!

As usual given MiLB's new scheduling established in 2021, the full-season affiliates enjoyed Monday off, with the clubs at the top three levels all returning to home base. The rookie-level youngsters at the complex level gave us some moments, documented for you here.

Carolina dominated Columbia for a 4th straight victory on the road. Biloxi and Wisconsin both had ample opportunities in one-run losses, though Wisconsin couldn’t muster a game-tying hit and Biloxi failed to hold two late leads. Nashville battled back twice, but couldn’t come through in yet another one-run loss.

My Link Report cohorts Joseph and Daniel (co-Rookie of the Year Awards for them, by the way) have taken a bottom-to-top approach this season in that their reports have kicked off from Class A Carolina and worked their way up to AAA Nashville. I will have to re-think my more traditional approach because the 2022 Mudcats have been great fun from the start given their energetic youth and exciting moments. Saturday's doubleheader sweep did not clinch a first-half playoff spot, not at all (one game lead over two other clubs with four games to play), but it put the exclamation point that included Brandon Woodruff's promising K-fest rehab start, Biloxi winning in a rout, and the formal end of the Timber Rattler first-half playoff hopes. All that being said, here's another "traditional" top-to-bottom review.

The Mudcats game recap via the Carolina site includes the headline "First Place Mudcats". Though it's a razor-thin half-game lead, that's still very pleasant news. We'll often let the full-season clubs break down much of the game action minutia within their team site summaries and tweets, but we have no such luxury at the rookie complex levels. If there is another organization's fan-site providing as much detail on the rookie level as BrewerFanatic, well, we'd be surprised. So settle in not only for the news about the players close to impacting the big-league Crew, but stay informed along with us on the 2027 and beyond Milwaukee Brewers you're also getting to know now.

Every Biloxi batter had at least one base hit in their 11-4 win. Nashville nearly turned around a seven-run deficit, but fell 7-6 in Memphis. Wisconsin fell behind 12-0 in their big loss. Carolina and Columbia were rained out, so will make up the game on Saturday. Only one of the four short season squads were victorious.

There are seven scheduled games remaining in the first-half seasons for the Brewers' three full-season clubs below the AAA level. Second-place Biloxi (27-30) won on Wednesday but remains on the very fringe of the have-hope world, standing 4.5 games back, six in the loss column. Second-place Wisconsin, despite a fine 34-24 record, dropped a game further back, and now is 3.5 games from the top spot. Carolina has been fortunate to be in a very balanced division with the top six teams all within three games of .500. The Mudcats (30-29) have caromed on a now five-game skid at the worst possible time, and sit in second place, albeit just one game out. AAA Nashville's playoff fortunes are based on their full-season exploits, but the Sounds' stellar 37-24 mark gives them only a 1.5 game lead over both the Guardians' and Cardinals' clubs. Time to examine Wednesday's 2-2 mark on the farm.

Antoine Kelly struck out ten in leading Wisconsin to an 8-6 win. Biloxi fought back from an early deficit but lost 7-6. Carolina battled, but also lost the game late. Nashville couldn’t keep up with Memphis, losing 7-3. Our young short-season squads won two and lost two.

The Brewers have won just two of their past 12 games, but thankfully there are eight Brewers affiliates to follow. Hopefully, there are some positive things happening in the organization. Click below to see how the affiliates performed last week. 

Sure, like the full-season affiliate teams, your intrepid BrewerFanatic daily Minor League reporters enjoy a Monday off.  But given the recent starts of the Maryvale and Dominican Complex League seasons, we will saddle up and continue to seek out the backstories and unique stat lines to point out to our faithful legion of farmhand diehards, After all, last year Jackson Chourio was very good (.833 OPS as a 17-year-old in the DSL), but did that truly forecast 2022's amazing run so far? Luis Lara, anyone? Hopefully we're about to enjoy a similar run with the latest center field high-bonus phenom to grab our attention.