Royals April 14th Minors Recap

Monday ended up being a light day for the Kansas City Royals farm system, as Triple-A Omaha and Double-A NW Arkansas ended up with an unexpected day off due to rain.

Omaha was rained out in Nashville. They will make this game up as part of a doubleheader on May 21st. The baseball gods do not want to see Aaron Brooks start, as he was slated to make tonight’s start. Omaha has not determined a starter for tomorrow night’s game at home against Round Rock.

NW Arkansas will play a doubleheader on Tuesday night as they try to finish up their series at home against Midland. Jason Adam and Tim Melville will get the starts for the Naturals.

Blue Rocks starter Sean Manaea in their home opener on April 8, 2014 (Jen Nevius).

Wilmington came back to beat visiting Winston-Salem 3-1 on Monday night to win the four-game series.

Sean Manaea pitched well in his second professional start and actually left with the 1-0 lead. He allowed four hits and a walk over five scoreless innings. He struck out five. Manaea even picked a runner off first base.

However, Aroni Nina allowed a run in the top of the 8th inning on a Courtney Hawkins two out RBI single to tie the game. The Blue Rocks battled right back with two runs in the bottom of the inning, as both runs scored on a throwing error.

That was enough for Mark Peterson, who worked around a two out double to earn his second save of the season. He struck out two.

On offense, Cameron Gallagher collected two hits and drove in a run.

Lexington‘s offense busted out in a big way with a 17-0 shellacking of Rome in the first game of their series. The Legends pounded out 18 hits to just four for the Braves.

The Legends hit five doubles, along with Michael Antonio‘s two out, two-run home run in the 6th inning. Every starter had at least one hit, with six players having multi-hit games. Antonio and Frank Schwindel collected three hits (Antonio fell a triple short of the cycle), while Elier Hernandez, Fred Ford, Chad Johnson, and Ramon Torres each had two hits. Antonio and Ford (the 6-7 hitters) drove in seven total runs, with Johnson (the eight-hole hitter) driving in four runs.

The offensive explosion made a winner of Jake Junis, who allowed just two hits and a walk over six scoreless innings. He struck out three, but induced 11 ground outs. Matt Alvarez threw two perfect innings of relief with three strikeouts, before Kevin McCarthy allowed two hits in the ninth.

*Blue Rocks starter Christian Binford was named the Carolina League’s Pitcher of the Week.