Knapp, Pinto Selected as Phillies Minor League Players of the Month for August

Reading catcher Andrew Knapp and Clearwater right-hander Ricardo Pinto have been named Phillies Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Month for August.

Knapp, a switch-hitting catcher, batted .404 (40-for-99) with eight home runs, 28 RBI, 23 runs scored, 12 walks, nine doubles, one triple, a .758 slugging percentage and 1.277 OPS in 25 games. He hit safely in his first 15 games of the month, batting .542 with five home runs, 18 RBI and 10 multi-hit games during that span. During August, Knapp hit more home runs than he had in any single season of his career prior to 2015.

The 23-year-old is batting .364 in his 53 games with Reading, which would be the highest batting average in the league by 41 points if he had enough at-bats to qualify. Combining his numbers at Reading and Clearwater this season, he has set new professional highs in home runs (13), RBI (84), doubles (35), runs scored (77) and walks (50), shattering his previous marks. Knapp, who also was named Phillies Minor League Player of the Week twice during August, was selected by the Phillies in the second round of the 2013 draft out of the University of California at Berkeley and was signed by Joey Davis.

Pinto, 21, earned Player of the Month honors after a dominant August, during which he went 4-0 with a 0.73 ERA (two earned runs in 24.2 innings), a 0.77 WHIP (15 hits and four walks), 18 strikeouts and a .179 opponents' batting average. On August 5 he tossed 6.0 shutout innings against Lakeland, walking none while striking out six. He also struck out six in 6.2 innings of scoreless baseball against Dunedin on August 17. Pinto did not allow more than five hits in any of his four starts.

The 6-foot-1, 165-pound Venezuela native is 8-2 with a 2.45 ERA this season with Clearwater, and is 14-4 with a 2.76 ERA overall between the Threshers and Lakewood BlueClaws. Pinto was signed by the Phillies and Jesus Mendez as an amateur free agent in December of 2011.