Judge, Mateo among 10 top prospect performers Tuesday
Yanks' No. 2 prospect hits his 5th Triple-A homer, No. 3 prospect continues torrid stretch for Tampa
Yankees No. 2 prospect Aaron Judge is beginning to heat up for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but he's nowhere near the hot bat No. 3 prospect Jorge Mateo is swinging for Class A Advanced Tampa.
Tuesday night, Judge hit his second homer in four games for the RailRiders, finishing 1-for-4 with three RBIs in a 5-2 win over Pawtucket. The blast was his fifth since joining Scranton on June 22 and he has seven doubles and 18 RBIs.
Mateo was promoted to Tampa last week and just recorded his fifth multi-hit game in seven tries.
The shortstop finished 3-for-5 with two doubles, two runs, three RBIs and a stolen base for the Yanks. He's hitting .464/.500/.714 since the promotion, along with four swiped bags in five attempts.
Those who caught some of his games at Class A Charleston are certainly not surprised; Mateo stole 71 bases in 96 games for the RiverDogs, finishing with 28 extra-base hits and 33 RBIs. He leads all Minor Leaguers in stolen bases and the next closest player has 60 steals -- 15 behind Mateo's 75.
The rest of the 10 best performances from top Minor Leaguers
• Indians No. 2 prospect (No. 41 overall) Clint Frazier turned in a 3-for-6 night for Class A Advanced Lynchburg that included two doubles and four RBIs. His season average (.289) is now the highest it's been since April 24. "I changed my setup at the plate," he told MiLB.com of his post-All Star Break adjustments. "I just rest the bat on my shoulder right now. It's just something that helps me relax more. I'm really trying to stick to my approach at the plate, I think that's been the difference-maker."
• Indians No. 23 prospect Nellie Rodriguez made an immediate impact for Double-A Akron on Tuesday, ripping a grand slam in his first at-bat for the RubberDucks. The blast was Rodriguez's second in three games, and pushed him to 88 RBIs on the year, good for third in the Minors. He finished 1-for-5 on Tuesday.
No. 1 prospect (No. 31 overall) Bradley Zimmer contributed to the win, too, going 2-for-4 with a solo homer in the fifth. He spent three months with Rodriguez at Class A Advanced Lynchburg before joining the RubberDucks on July 16. Since then, the No. 21 overall pick in the 2014 Draft has hit .253 with four roundtrippers and 17 RBIs.
• Marlins No. 8 prospect Brett Lilek has put together two straight dominant outings for Class A Batavia. The 6-foot-4 southpaw allowed just one hit while striking out seven in five innings on Tuesday, and has struck out 15 batters while giving up five hits in his past two starts (10 total innings). Save for an ugly pair of back-to-back starts in mid-July (11 earned runs in 5 2/3 innings), Lilek has surrendered just one earned run in seven other appearances for the Muckdogs, a run that's spanned 22 total innings.
• Red Sox No. 6 prospect Andrew Benintendi is finally getting comfortable swinging a wooden bat. One day after hitting his fifth home run of the season for Class A Short Season Lowell, he smacked two more as part of a 3-for-5 outing. "It took a little longer to get used to it than I would have liked," the rookie told MiLB.com of the switch from aluminum. "The metal bat has a lot more flex, and obviously, the wood bat doesn't flex nearly as much. I was getting jammed a lot in those first couple games while I got used to it. But I feel pretty comfortable now." He's hitting .279/.403/.548 with 15 RBIs in 30 games for the Spinners.
• Reds No. 6 prospect Nick Travieso won for the first time in five starts by silencing every bat he faced Tuesday. The 21-year-old did not allow a hit while striking out four hitters and walking two in five innings as Class A Advanced Daytona took down Dunedin, 8-0. Travieso improved to 4-5 while cutting his ERA from 3.03 to 2.82 his lowest number since April 21. The right-hander missed almost two months of action between June 15 and Aug. 6 after suffering a wrist contusion on a comebacker. Travieso returned last week, allowing one run on two hits in two innings.
• Rockies No. 12 prospect Tom Murphy homered for the fourth straight game. The Triple-A Albuquerque catcher went 1-for-4 with a two-run shot Tuesday and is hitting .471 (8-for-17) with seven RBIs in his past four contests. He's only logged 14 games for the Isotopes, but already has five total homers and 12 RBIs over that span and sports a .310/.322/.655 line at the Triple-A level.
• White Sox No. 10 prospect Jacob May was probably not a likely candidate to hit for the cycle on Tuesday night. The center fielder had zero triples and just one home run in 71 games for Double-A Birmingham entering the night. But none of that mattered in a 13-10 loss to Pensacola, when May hit a single (first inning), triple (fifth inning), double (seventh inning) and a home run (eighth inning) as part of a 4-for-5 performance. Drafted No. 91 overall in 2013, the speedy May is hitting .298/.338/.363 with 29 RBIs and 31 stolen bases in 43 attempts. Tuesday marked his first four-hit game since June 28 last season.