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August 26 Game Notes: Iowa Cubs vs. St. Paul Saints

August 26, 2022 - International League (IL)
Iowa Cubs News Release


IOWA CUBS (55-65) vs. ST. PAUL SAINTS (57-61)

Friday - 7:08 PM - Principal Park - Des Moines, IA

RHP Matt Swarmer (3-2, 2.89) vs. RHP Ronny Henriquez (2-4, 6.05)

TONIGHT'S GAME: Iowa and St. Paul will play the fourth game of their six-game series against St. Paul tonight, with Matt Swarmer taking the ball for the I-Cubs. Swarmer is 3-2 with a 2.89 ERA through 15 games this year including nine starts with Iowa. He has allowed 18 earned runs on 41 hits over 56.0 innings, walking 24 compared to 63 strikeouts. Tonight will mark his third game of the year against the Saints but his first start, pitching out of relief on May 5 and July 28. Opposite of Swarmer will be right-hander Ronny Henriquez set to make his 12th start of the year for the Saints. Henriquez is scheduled to pitch in his 21st game this year with St. Paul, allowing 52 earned runs on 86 hits and 30 walks over his first 77.1 innings pitched. Over that span, he has allowing 15 home runs, hit five batters and struck out 85, allowing opponents to hit .280 against him. Tonight will be his fourth game against the I-Cubs this season, having allowed six earned runs in 11.2 innings through the first three.

JUST KEEP HITTING: After going 6-for-17 in Indianapolis, Darius Hill hasn't missed a step since returning home. With a 3-for-8 line so far this week, he is now hitting .342 on the year with Iowa. That not only leads the active roster, it would also lead all of Triple-A baseball by almost twenty points if Hill qualified for leaderboards. He has amassed 80 hits in 61 games as an I-Cub, helped by a team-leading 26 multi-hit efforts, and has gone hitless in just 14 games since joining the roster. He struck out two times on Wednesday, but that was only his fifth multi-strikeout game with Iowa, nearly 250 at-bats in. Hill's single in that game also extended his current hitting streak to 11 games, making him the owner of three of Iowa's six longest hitting streaks this year. With that, he has now logged a double-digit hitting streak in each of the three months he has spent in Iowa, including a career-high 12-game streak from July 15 to August 5.

WINNER WINNER: Ben Leeper earned his third win of the season last night, moving his record to 3-2 with a 3.93 ERA. He entered the ninth inning in a tied game with one out and recorded the final two outs including one strikeout. It marked his 26th game this year with at least one strikeout. Leeper earned his first win since July 29, also against St. Paul. His last six decisions dating back to July 17 have all been good, with three wins and three saves coming over those 10 games.

KEEP IT GOING: Iowa's pitching staff has flipped a switch this series and it all begins with their starting pitching. Through the first three games of the series against St. Paul, Iowa's starters have allowed just one earned run over 15.0 innings. They have all spun five innings, while Caleb Kilian and Wyatt Short each threw five shutout frames followed by Hayden Wesneski allowing one unearned run in last night's win. In those three outings, the three have combined to allow just 10 hits and six walks while striking out 19, holding a record of 2-0 with an ERA of 0.60. Matt Swarmer will look to keep the ball rolling tonight against the Saints in what would be the first time he threw five innings since June 11 when he was up with Chicago facing the New York Yankees. His last outing of five innings or more with Iowa was back on May 21, against Columbus.

KEEP BRINGING THEM IN: After a solo home run capped off a 3-for-3 game on Wednesday, Matt Mervis delivered again with another solo shot last night to give Iowa a walk-off win. With the game tied 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth, Mervis sent the second pitch he saw 440 feet to give Iowa their third win of the series over the Saints. The solo shot gave him home runs in back-to-back games, the 11th different player for Iowa to accomplish the feat and the 14th time an I-Cubs player has done so this year. Mervis has had an extremely quick year of progression, starting the year with High-A South Bend, getting promoted to Double-A Tennessee and now playing in 28 games with Iowa at Triple-A. Combined over the three levels, the first baseman has driven in 97 runs, tying him for third among all minor leaguers. His .597 slugging percentage places him at 10th among minor leaguers, while his 35 doubles, 63 extra-base hits and 243 total bases are all third among minor league players this year.

LATE-INNING LOCKDOWN: While Iowa's rotation has been absolutely lights-out against St. Paul, the bullpen has been holding up their end of the bargain, too. Yesterday, Jonathan Holder, Bryan Hudson and Ben Leeper combined to allow just one baserunner in the four innings they covered. They issued no walks for the second night in a row, marking the first back-to-back no-walk outings by the bullpen all season. So far this series, the relievers have combined to allow three earned runs on eight hits and a single walk in 12.0 innings.

AGAINST ST. PAUL: Iowa and St. Paul are set to play game four of their six-game series tonight with Iowa up three games to none entering tonight's contest. Tonight marks the first time in 10 tries that Iowa has ever taken the first three games of a series against St. Paul and could be the first time the I-Cubs take a series from the Saints in the two years they have played. With their three straight wins, Iowa is now just one game under the .500 mark against St. Paul this year at 10-11, going 5-4 here at Principal Park. In 12 games at home last year against the Saints, Iowa went just 3-9, already holding two more wins this year with three games left to play. Their 5-4 record at home this year puts them at 8-13 against the Saints all-time at Principal Park while going 22-34 overall all-time. Their one-run victory cut into their season scoring deficit moving it down to 16 runs, at 127-111.

SHORT HOPS: In all three games so far St. Paul has scored all of their runs in just one inning, getting their lone run in the sixth on Tuesday, both of their runs in the seventh on Wednesday and their one run in the second inning last night; the Saints have now scored just four runs in three of the 27 innings they have had an at-bat...Louie Varland struck out nine batters last night, tying the season high for strikeouts by a single pitcher in any game against Iowa this year...last night's win was the first of the year for Iowa in a game in which Hayden Wesneski started...the I-Cubs had their sixth walk-off victory and 26th comeback win of the year last night, moving to 7-37 on the year when they score less than four runs...this is just the second series of the year that Iowa has won the first three games, the other was May 10-13 when they took the first four games against Omaha.

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