Triple-A baseball in the heart of Music City? Sounds good to us.
The MLB Pipeline Game of the Month takes us to Nashville tonight for an International League matchup between the Sounds (Brewers) and Jacksonville (Marlins) at 7:05 p.m. ET. As with all Games of the Month, the game will be broadcast for FREE on MLB.com, MLB.TV and on the MLB Pipeline homepage. It’ll also be available to regular MLB At Bat and MiLB.TV subscribers through those channels.
No. 30 Milwaukee prospect Justin Jarvis is slated to get the start for the Sounds. The 23-year-old right-hander owns a 3.81 ERA with 100 strikeouts over 85 innings this season between Triple-A and Double-A and earns above-average grades on his 93-95 mph riding fastball and low-80s splitter.
Before the game, Sam Dykstra and Kelsie Heneghan will chat on MLB Pipeline Instagram Live with Nashville manager Rick Sweet, who delivered the news this week that No. 2 Brewers prospect Sal Frelick was headed to the Majors for his debut. Sweet has managed in the Minors for 33 seasons and has served as Milwaukee's Triple-A skipper since 2014. Entering the weekend, he ranks second among active Minor League managers with 2,243 wins.
Also, No. 7 Brewers prospect Robert Gasser will talk to MLB Pipeline about his deep pitching repertoire for a future edition of the Pitching Lab. Previous Labs have focused on Andrew Abbott, Owen White and Taj Bradley.
On the Jacksonville side, the Jumbo Shrimp go big on infielders, including Top 30 Marlins prospects Jacob Amaya (No. 8), Jordan Groshans (No. 9) and Xavier Edwards (No. 11). Edwards, in particular, has been hot of late. Entering Thursday, the switch-hitter was 26-for-58 (.448) with only two strikeouts over his first 13 games of July.
As is Game of the Month tradition, we’ll bring you plenty more from beyond the field too. Keep a pregame eye on the MiLB Instagram feed for a tour of Nashville's First Horizon Park, including an up-close look at the Sounds’ iconic guitar scoreboard. Sam and Kelsie will also spend the weekend collecting interviews for a future edition of the Minor League Baseball podcast The Show Before the Show, taking out-of-town fans behind the scenes in one of the Minors’ top level’s best baseball towns. (Yes, there might be some chatter of Nashville hot chicken included.)
Catch you in baseball's honky tonk.