On Wednesday afternoon in the Arizona Fall League, Reese McGuire and Austin Meadows were in the starting lineup for Glendale. McGuire caught and batted fifth, while Meadows batted eighth and manned center field. Tyler Eppler pitched two innings out of the bullpen and Brett McKinney also made an appearance, as Glendale lost 5-4 to Scottsdale.
McGuire came up in the first inning with two outs and two runners in scoring position. He kept the inning alive by drawing a walk to load the bases. In the third inning, McGuire tripled home a run on a 3-2 pitch to make it 3-0 Glendale. He scored their fourth run one batter later. In the fifth inning, he was called out on strikes. In the seventh, McGuire grounded out to second base to end the inning. He’s now hitting .294 with three extra-base hits. On defense, he was 1-for-3 throwing out runners.
After McGuire walked in the first to load the bases, two more Glendale batters walked, giving them an early 2-0 lead. It also brought up Austin Meadows for the first time. Facing a new pitcher, he grounded out to first base to end the first inning. Meadows ended the third inning as well, flying out to center field on the first pitch he saw. In the fifth, he came up with a 4-4 score, two outs and the bases loaded. Meadows hit the ball well, but it was right at the first baseman. He stranded seven runners in his first three at-bats. He came up in the eighth with a runner on first and one out. Meadows ended his day with a ground out to first base, giving him an 0-for-4 day and a .121 average in 33 at-bats.
Tyler Eppler came out of the bullpen for the fourth inning. He has had a tough AFL season, allowing five runs on seven hits and two walks, with no strikeouts, in 4.1 innings before this game. Things didn’t get any better on Wednesday. Eppler actually retired the first two batters he faced, before things got crazy. The next five batters reached on a single, single, double, double and single, bringing home four runs, all with two outs and no one on base. Eppler retired the next batter and threw a total of 24 pitches in the inning, 14 for strikes.
He came out for the fifth inning and got the first batter to pop up to second base. Eppler walked the next batter on seven pitches. One pitch later, that runner stole second base. The next batter lined out to center field for the second out. Eppler then got a grounder to third base to end the inning. He threw 17 pitches, 11 for strikes. The results obviously aren’t there for Eppler in the AFL, but the important thing with him going there is to get in extra innings because he missed time during the regular season with an elbow injury. While you always want to see a player put up solid stats, it’s more important that he builds up innings so he can start for the entire season in 2016, and not worry about getting shutdown early due to an innings limit.
Brett McKinney pitched the bottom of the seventh, coming in with Glendale holding onto a one run lead. He started with a fly out to left field, which was followed by a line drive single to center field. That runner remained at first though, as McKinney got two more fly balls to end the inning. He threw 16 pitches in his only inning of work, 11 for strikes.
