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August 22 Game Notes: Iowa Cubs at Indianapolis Indians

August 22, 2023 - International League (IL)
Iowa Cubs News Release


IOWA CUBS (68-49) @ INDIANAPOLIS INDIANS (55-63)

Tuesday, August 22 - 6:05 PM CT - Victory Field - Indianapolis, IN

RHP Shane Greene (0-0, 4.70) vs. RHP Jared Jones (2-2, 5.40)

TONIGHT'S GAME: Iowa and Indianapolis will play game one of their six-game series tonight, with Shane Greene taking the ball for Iowa. Greene is 0-0 with a 4.70 ERA in his three starts for Iowa, allowing four earned runs on five hits and six walks. The righty has struck out eight batters over his 7.2 innings pitched, limiting opponents to a .192 batting average against him. Through his first two starts, Greene had surrendered just one hit, but got touched-up for four runs on four hits and four walks last time out on Wednesday against Louisville. Opposite of Greene will be Jared Jones getting the start for Indianapolis. Jones comes into tonight's contest with a 2-2 record and a 5.40 ERA in 10 games (nine starts), allowing 29 earned runs on 47 hits over 48.1 innings pitched. Over that span, he has walked 21 batters compared to striking out 63 batters. In his lone start against Iowa this year, Jones allowed two earned runs on three hits and two walks, striking out four in four innings pitched.

KEEP AN EYE ON KEEGAN: Relief pitcher Keegan Thompson has spent the second half of the season with Iowa, building his way back up to potentially join Chicago in the big leagues. The Cullman, Alabama native was mostly with Chicago over the past two seasons and was one of the more effective arms on the pitching staff. In 2021 he posted a record of 3-3 and a 3.38 ERA over 53.1 innings to go along with 55 strikeouts and 31 walks. In 2022, Thompson went an impressive 10-5 with a 3.76 ERA in 115.0 innings and totaled 108 strikeouts compared to just 43 walks. As of late, the right-hander has looked solid and had another good outing in the series finale versus Louisville this past Sunday. Thompson was the first arm out of the bullpen versus the Bats and tossed two scoreless innings with no walks, one hit allowed, and one strikeout against seven batters faced. Over his past four appearances, the 28-year-old has tallied a total of 8.1 innings with just two earned runs for an ERA of 2.16. He has racked up eight punch outs compared to just one walk over that time frame and is holding opponents to a .207 hitting clip as well.

RUNNING LATE: An area that Iowa has had success this season had been in keeping its opponents off the scoreboard late in games. However, that was not the case in the most recent series versus Louisville. The I-Cubs and the Bats ended up splitting the series at 3-3, but Louisville was able to sneak away with some wins due to late inning rallies. Over the course of the six-game series, Louisville scored 15 total runs in the final three innings or in extras for an average of 2.5 runs over the final third of games. Louisville scored a total of 33 runs in the entire series meaning just under half of the Bats' runs came in the later innings. Looking specifically at the games over the weekend, Louisville had its best offensive outputs in the ninth inning. The Bats scored eight runs in the ninth inning of those three contests which equates to a quarter of their runs for the entire series.

ADDING ARMS: Iowa has had a host of players, specifically pitchers, join the roster as of late. Most recently, two arms made their season debuts with the I-Cubs in Brad Boxberger and Edwin Uceta. Boxberger is currently on a Major League Rehab assignment while Uceta was claimed off waivers after being designated for assignment by the New York Mets. The duo both threw in the series finale versus Louisville with Boxberger's line reading 1.0 inning, two hits allowed, an earned run, and a walk. Uceta, meanwhile, recorded just a third of an inning with two hits, one of them being a home run, and three earned runs. Another new face in the bullpen for Iowa is Richard Bleier. The 36-year-old recently signed a minor league contract with Chicago after he was designated for assignment and then released by the Boston Red Sox. Bleier also appeared in the game versus Louisville this past Sunday, but that was his second outing for the I-Cubs. In his two games with Iowa, the left-hander has pitched 3.0 innings with five hits allowed, three earned runs, one walk, and two strikeouts for an ERA of 9.00.

WHOLE LOT OF HITS: It has been almost one month exactly since the I-Cubs and the Indians faced off in a six-game series. The last time the two ball clubs went at it was at Principal Park July 18-23 and Iowa had one of its best hitting series in the entire season. Over the course of the six games versus Indianapolis, Iowa racked up a total of 60 hits for an average of 10 hits per game. Iowa's lowest hit total in a game during that series was nine, which they did twice in the games on Wednesday, July 19, and Saturday, July 22. In the series finale on Sunday, July 23, the I-Cubs collected 11 hits in the contest, which was their highest mark in the series, and every player for Iowa recorded at least one hit in that game. Iowa will now look to keep its bats hot against the Indians pitching as the final month of the season is officially here.

FOR THE TIE: With his single in the bottom of the third inning on Sunday, Pete Crow-Armstrong extended his hitting streak to 14 games. His 14-game streak is the longest of the year for any I-Cubs player, tied for the longest from a year ago, when Dixon Machado strung together 14 straight games with a hit from May 29 to June 15. A hit tonight would not only tie the No. 1 prospect's longest career hitting streak, it would also be the longest for an I-Cubs hitter since Jim Adduci recorded a 19-game hitting streak from May 20-June 24 in 2019. Crow-Armstrong has now reached base in all 16 games he has played in with Iowa, reaching in his first two games via a walk and hit by pitch. Over his 14-game hitting streak, the 21-year-old is hitting .328 (20-for-61) with 19 runs scored, four doubles, a triple, four home runs, 11 runs batted in and nine walks compared to 13 strikeouts. He is also a perfect 5-for-5 in stolen bases in his 16 games with Iowa this year.

AGAINST INDIANAPOLIS: Iowa and Indianapolis will meet for game one of their six-game series tonight, with Iowa currently leading the season series 12-6. This series will mark the last of the year between the two teams. The I-Cubs took nine of 12 games at Principal Park and split a six-game series at Victory Field back from May 16-21. 12-6 record this year moves their all-time overall record against the Indians to 50-64, going 22-35 on the road against Indianapolis. Dating back to their last series at Principal Park, Iowa comes into tonight's game on a two-game winning streak.

SHORT HOPS: Iowa is coming off a series split against Louisville in which they held late leads in every game they lost, games this I-Cubs team hasn't been losing all year; coming into their series against the Bats, they were 50-1 when leading after the seventh inning, a category in which they are now 52-4...the I-Cubs surrendered five eighth-inning runs to Louisville last week and are now getting outscored by 25 runs in the eighth inning this year, at 84-59...Iowa comes into tonight's game with a perfect 5-0 record on the road this month, going 9-8 overall in August...entering their previous series against the Bats, Iowa was 10-1 at home in one-run games and are now 10-4 at home, going 21-7 overall in that category.

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