On Saturday afternoon in the Arizona Fall League, the Surprise Saguaros defeated Mesa by a 4-2 score. All three hitters from the Pittsburgh Pirates were in the lineup, while Edgar Santana came out of the bullpen.
Eric Wood batted fourth and served as the designated hitter. He struck out swinging in the first inning, then grounded out to shortstop to end the third inning. Wood flew out to right field in the fifth. His tough day continued in the seventh when he struck out swinging to end the inning, giving him an 0-for-4 day.
Connor Joe batted fifth and played left field. He lined out to center field to start the second inning, then walked to lead-off the fourth inning. Joe flew out to right field to end the fifth inning, then grounded out to third base to begin the eighth inning. He finished 0-for-3 with a walk.
Jin-De Jhang hit sixth and was behind the plate. He grounded out to third base in his first at-bat, then grounded into a force out (Joe at second base) in the fourth inning. Jhang would come around to score on a single two batters later to make it a 2-2 game. He grounded out to shortstop to start the sixth inning, then walked in the eighth. Jhang went 0-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. He has a .341 average through 13 games. The opposition went 2-for-2 in steals against him.
Edgar Santana came on to pitch the eighth inning and after recording two quick outs, he issued his first walk of the fall. He struck out the next batter on a slider to end the inning. I’ll note that two of the four balls in Santana’s first walk actually got the outside corner of the plate according to PITCHf/x, so you could put an asterisk next to that one. Santana hit 95 MPH on six of his eight fastballs in the inning, topping out at 95.6 MPH twice.
With the score 4-2 in the top of the ninth, Santana came back out looking for the save. He got a grounder to second base to start the inning, then issued a second walk with worse strike zone calls (according to PITCHf/x) than the first walk. That was followed by a line drive double play to end the game.
This was another strong outing for Santana, even if the umpire didn’t see it that way. He was doing a good job of hitting the corners of the plate. His velocity was down to 93 by the end, but he also had to throw those extra pitches due to the calls. He has now thrown 12.2 scoreless innings over eight appearances, picking up 18 strikeouts. If you throw in his Fall-Stars appearance last Saturday, he’s up to 13.1 shutout frames this fall.
Surprise has off tomorrow. There are four games left in their season, starting with an afternoon contest against Peoria on Monday. Surprise came into Saturday’s game tied with Peoria for the division lead. The winner will go on to the AFL title game next Saturday. For those who want to watch some live baseball, Peoria will be on MLB Network tonight at 8PM EST in the Military Appreciation game. The win for Surprise today gives them a 1/2 game lead in the division for now, which is impressive considering that Peoria started off with a 10-1 record.
