On Thursday in the Arizona Fall League, Glendale played game three of the season, going up against the Pirates’ team from the last three seasons, Scottsdale. Austin Meadows switched back to center field, after moving to right field with Adam Frazier taking over in center in Wednesday’s game. Meadows batted second and was the only Pirate in the starting lineup. Tyler Eppler made his debut out of the bullpen and Brett McKinney also saw his first action. Glendale lost 9-2 and both Pirates’ pitchers played a big role in the defeat.
Meadows came into the game with no hits in his first two contests, though he did drive in a run each game. He reached on an error in the first inning, then swiped second base for his first steal of the season. In the third inning, Meadows flew out to left field, then repeated that result two innings later in his third at-bat. If Meadows came into the game with the plan of flying out to left field every two innings, he did a good job of extending his streak to three times in the seventh inning. He finished 0-for-4 in the game and 0-for-12 on the season.
Tyler Eppler came on to pitch in the fourth and allowed two hits, including a single to JaCoby Jones, who was his teammate earlier this year before being traded to the Tigers for Joakim Soria. Eppler got a line out to Meadows for the second out, then picked Jones off first base for the third out.
In the fifth inning, Eppler walked one and threw a wild pitch, but retired the other three hitters for his second scoreless inning. The sixth inning however, was unkind to Eppler. He faced four hitters and allowed three base hits that were all well struck, as well as a walk, leaving with no outs and the bases loaded. That brought Brett McKinney out of the bullpen.
McKinney got the first batter to foul out to the third baseman, but the runner from third base was able to come home. He then got the second out of the inning on another foul ball down the left field line. After that, the game got ugly. McKinney allowed a homer, which scored three runs. That was followed by a double, then another homer. It put a seven spot on the board and Glendale trailed 8-2 at the time. Four of those runs were charged to Eppler.
