On Saturday afternoon in the Arizona Fall League, Glendale had two Pirates in the lineup, as they took on Peoria on the road. Reese McGuire caught and batted third, while Austin Meadows was in right field, batting cleanup. Brett McKinney came out of the bullpen. Glendale lost in the ninth, giving up two runs in the bottom of the inning for a 5-4 defeat. They now have an 8-6 record.
In the first, McGuire came up with a runner on second after back-to-back doubles to start the game. He flew out to center field, advancing the runner to third base. Leading off the fourth, McGuire singled up the middle. With two outs and no one on in the sixth, he lined a single into center field off a 94 mph fastball. In the eighth, he doubled for his third hit of the day. McGuire is batting .333 in 24 at-bats this fall, though he’s just 1-for-11 against left-handed pitchers.
Meadows had his first multi-hit game in the AFL on Friday, but Saturday was another poor game for him. He came up in the first with a man on third and one out. Meadows couldn’t get the runner home, striking out swinging on a change-up. After the Reese McGuire single in the fourth with no outs, Meadows came up and grounded into a force out, with McGuire being retired at second base. In the sixth, he flew out to right field to end the inning, stranding McGuire on first base.
In the eighth, Meadows came up with runners on second and third and one, with his team down by two runs. He grounded out to the pitcher, but a throwing error ended up scoring both runs. Meadows received an RBI on the play. He then stole second base, before scoring on another error, giving Glendale a 4-3 lead at the time. He finished 0-for-4, dropping his average down to .146 through 41 at-bats.
Brett McKinney came in to pitch the fourth with Glendale down 2-1. He gave up a home run to the lead-off batter on a 92 mph fastball. McKinney struck out the next hitter on the eighth pitch of the at-bat, after throwing seven pitches to the first batter. He then got a ground out to first base, followed by a grounder to third base for the final out. The last two batters saw just four pitches. McKinney has touched high 90’s this year, usually sitting in the 92-94 range. On this day, his fastball was 90-92 and he threw a lot of off-speed pitches.
