Red Sox Minor Lines: Triston Casas is pretty good

Pawtucket PPD

Portland PPD

Salem W 5-4

Victor Acosta, LF: 2-3, 1 2B, 2 BB, 1 RBI

Ryan Fitzgerald, SS: 2-3, 1 BB, 2 RBI

Pedro Castellanos, 1B: 0-4, 1 R, 1 K, 1 SB

Marcus Wilson, CF: 1-3, 1 3B, 1 BB, 2 K

Kutter Crawford: 6 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 4 K (98 pitches)

Salem came back for the victory on Saturday, tying the game in the sixth before walking it off on Fitzgerald’s RBI single in the ninth. Crawford was the story here, though, with his second worst start of his season. At least it was by earned runs. He did allow eight hits, which was the second most he allowed all year as well, though he also only walked one on top of it. It is worth noting that all eight hits he allowed were singles, so it’s really hard to know how much of the issue was Crawford being hittable and how much of it was poor defense behind him. Either way, the righty is up to a 3.39 ERA on the year.

Greenville W 5-1

Cole Brannen, CF: 1-4

Devlin Granberg, DH: 1-3, 2 R, 1 K

Triston Casas, 1B: 2-4, 1 2B, 1 HR, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 K

Brandon Howlett, 3B: 2-3, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 K

Alex Scherff: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 3 K (91 pitches)

Yoan Aybar: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K (24 pitches)

The margin of victory doesn’t quite do justice for how tough this game was for Greenville, at least early on. They were never behind in this one, to be fair, but Scherff was far from dominant despite allowing just the one run. He’ll take results however he can get them right now, as the righty has been struggling of late, but more walks than strikeouts and ten baserunners (he hit a batter as well) in six innings is not ideal. On the other end, Triston Casas is very good at this. With yet another big day, the 2018 first round pick is now hitting .270/.346/.514, which is wild considering he was hitting .208/.284/.364 at the end of April.

Lowell L 7-12

Jonathan Diaz, C: 3-4, 2 2B, 1 BB, 1 R

Steve Pearce, 1B: 0-3, 2 K

Juan Carlos Abreu, DH: 4-5, 3 R, 1 RBI, 1 K

Nicholas Northcut, 3B: 2-4, 1 2B, 1 BB, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 K, 1 E

Antoni Flores, SS: 0-4, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 E

Nick Decker, RF: 1-2, 1 3B, 1 BB, 1 R, 3 RBI, 1 K

Gilberto Jimenez, CF: 0-2, 2 RBI, 1 K

Hector Velázquez: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K (9 pitches)

It was a tough day for the Lowell pitching staff on Saturday, but they did get a good start from the rehabbing Velázquez in his first action since hitting the IL. It was only one inning, of course, but it’s a start. Offensively, this group is very exciting and they showed it again for their second game. Northcut is now up to four doubles in the first two games of the season while Abreu picked up where he left off in the GCL last year. Decker also had himself a day driving in three runs. This is the type of offense that should be able to have different guys stepping up on a near-daily basis.

DSL 1 W 7-6 (F/10)

Nelfy Abreu, RF: 2-4, 1 2B, 1 BB, 2 R, 1 K, 1 SB

Brainer Bonaci, 3B: 3-5, 1 HR, 2 R, 4 RBI

Eduardo Lopez, CF: 1-5, 1 K

Nixson Munoz: 3.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K

DSL 2 PPD

There was only one game in the Dominican on Saturday with the “2” squad being rained out. Lopez, the top international signee last summer, is struggling to start his career. It’s only been ten games so it’s clearly not time to panic, but he is hitting only .143/.286/.257 very early on. Meanwhile, Bonaci is another signee from last July and he is scorching to start his career to the tune of a .431/.491/.647 line.