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AFL Recap: Will Craig Ties for Home Run Crown on His Last Swing of the Season

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The Arizona Fall League season wrapped up on Thursday, as the Surprise Saguaros took on Mesa on the road. Will Craig and Bryan Reynolds were in the lineup, while Cole Tucker was on the bench. Coming into the day, Tucker trailed the league leader in hits by one. Surprise had a tough season with some late losses, so it seems fitting that they lost 11-10 on a walk-off hit in the ninth.

Will Craig walked in the second inning and scored a run. He struck out swinging in the fourth, then grounded out to first base in the seventh inning. In the eighth, Craig crushed a three-run homer, his sixth of the season. That gave him a tie for the home run crown with Peter Alonso and Braxton Davidson, who are both first basemen. Craig finished 1-for-3 with a walk.

Bryan Reynolds walked in the second, then struck out swinging in the fourth. He struck out swinging again in the seventh, then grounded out back to the pitcher to end the eighth inning. He finished 0-for-3 with a walk.

Cole Tucker actually got to play, pinch-running in the ninth inning with two outs and the score tied. The next batter flew out to end the inning. Tucker stayed in the game on defense at shortstop, but never got a chance to bat.

Geoff Hartlieb came out in the fourth inning with two outs and a man on second base. He retired the first batter to end the inning. He pitched a scoreless fifth inning, though he walked two batters. This was his tenth appearance of the fall and in five of those games he threw shutout ball. In the other five, he allowed ten earned runs over 7.1 innings.

We will have an AFL season recap over the weekend. The league has one more game left if you want a last chance at live baseball for a few months. The championship game will be televised on MLB Network at 3 PM EST on Saturday.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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