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July 15 Game Notes: Iowa Cubs vs. Buffalo Bisons

July 15, 2022 - International League (IL)
Iowa Cubs News Release


IOWA CUBS (38-48) vs. BUFFALO BISONS (45-42)

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

LHP Matt Dermody (4-3, 4.41) vs. RHP Thomas Hatch (4-4, 4.74)

TONIGHT'S GAME: Iowa and Buffalo will play game four of their series tonight with Matt Dermody toeing the rubber for the I-Cubs. Dermody leads the team in wins with four and innings pitched with 65.1 entering tonight's contest, set to make his first start of the year against Buffalo. The southpaw has pitched in 17 games including 11 starts coming into tonight, allowing 32 earned runs on 74 hits including 11 home runs. Opposite of Dermody will be Thomas Hatch taking the ball for the Bisons. Hatch leads Buffalo in starts with 13 this year, going 4-4 with a 4.74 ERA over those 13 starts. He has allowed 36 earned runs on 71 hits over his 68.1 innings, walking 22 batters while striking out 63. Hatch did not pitch against Iowa the first time the two teams faced off in Buffalo, as he is set to make the first start of his career against the I-Cubs.

DOMINANT DERMODY: Matt Dermody will take the mound for the I-Cubs tonight to face off with his former team for the first time. The lefty spent parts of four seasons with the Bisons, earning a 7-2 record and 4.12 ERA (40ER/87.1IP) in 68 outings. He comes into tonight's game fresh off his strongest start of the season. In Indianapolis last week, Dermody went five shutout innings, allowing only two hits, and striking out a career-high ten batters. That surpassed his previous career high of seven, which he set on July 21 of 2013 while pitching in Short-Season A. Though he's bounced between the rotation and a long-relief role for Iowa this season, Dermody is now set to make his 12th start, which will tie his single-season career high, set in 2014. He leads the I-Cubs in innings, with 65.1, and his win last week was his fourth of the year, which is also a team high. His ten punchouts tied the I-Cubs' high by a single pitcher this season, previously set by Matt Swarmer, and brought his total on the season to 56 - nine shy of his career high for a single season. With his most recent scoreless outing in the books, Dermody is now 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA (4ER/23.1IP) and 22 strikeouts over his last five outings.

JACKSON IN ACTION: Jackson Frazier went 1-for-4 with a home run last night, extending his hitting streak to a season-high six games. It's his longest streak since 2019, when he hit in six straight with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and just one game shy of his career-high at Triple-A, also set with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2017. Frazier has hit safely in 11 of his last 12 games, boosting his season average with Iowa to .245, and reached base in all 12. After starting his I-Cubs career with a .195 average (8-for-41) over his first ten games, the outfielder has turned it on. Since the calendar flipped to July, he has gone 15-for-42 through 12 games. That has given him a .357 average and a team-leading .738 slugging percentage this month. He has also collected 16 RBI over that span, which is the most by an I-Cub this month, and accounts for over a quarter of Iowa's total run production (16-of-58) in July.

LOCKDOWN LEIBRANDT: Brandon Leibrandt went three scoreless innings last night, keeping the I-Cubs in the game with another dominant performance. The outing extended Leibrandt's scoreless inning streak to 16, beginning in the third inning of his quality start against Louisville on June 21. Since then, the lefty pitched four perfect innings of relief for Iowa on June 28, went three hitless, scoreless innings in a start for Double-A Tennessee, and has now made two consecutive scoreless relief appearances since returning to Iowa. Over his last four outings - totaling 12 innings - the lefty has allowed just three hits and three walks.

THREE FOR THREE: Dixon Machado has been the most reliable player on Iowa's roster all season, playing in 76 of their 86 games, good for 88%. He has now recorded three hits in three straight games against Buffalo to start the series, making it eight three-hit efforts for the shortstop this year. In the series against the Bisons, Machado is now 9-for-14 with two doubles, seven runs batted in and a walk. All seven of his RBI in the series have come with two outs. The 30-year-old leads the team in many different categories, including multi-hit games (23), three-hit games (8), hits (92), doubles (16), walks (43) and on-base percentage (.400). He is among the International League leaders in three different categories, sitting at third in batting average (.308), fourth in on-base percentage (.400) and tied for fourth in hits (92). He also is in the top-ten in each of those categories among all Triple-A players, sitting at ninth in batting average, eighth in on-base percentage and tied for fifth in hits. He has led off for Iowa in 70 games now this year, sitting atop the lineup in 81% of the team's games. With nine hits in his last three games, Machado sits just eight hits away from 100, a mark just two other players in all of Triple-A have reached this year. Iowa's leader last year in hits was Abiatal Avelino, who collected 101 hits in 106 games. Avelino also led last years team in multi-hit games with 31, two marks Machado is sneaking up on through his first 76 games.

FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE: Outfielder Darius Hill has been a big piece of Iowa's offense ever since he joined the team from Double-A Tennessee back on May 31. In his first 27 games with the I-Cubs, Hill hit .376 (41-for-109) including 14 multi-hit games and 21 games with at least one hit. The 24-year-old was slotted straight into the top of the lineup and was constantly reaching base. Since his last multi-hit game back on July 6 against Indianapolis, Hill has gone just 2-for-21 in his last six games, hitting .095 with one double and two runs batted in. It is the first real slump for the outfielder since joining Iowa, going hitless in three of his five games played in the stretch. Hill has led the team in batting average for the majority of the time he has been on the roster and is now second on the active roster with a .331 average. He is hitting .331 (43-for-130) with 20 runs scored, 10 doubles, seven runs batted in, eight walks and 17 strikeouts in 33 games.

AGAINST BUFFALO: Iowa and Buffalo will play game four of their six-game series tonight, with Buffalo currently holding a 2-1 series lead. After having the Bisons down to their last out in the ninth inning last night, Iowa dropped the game in the 11th inning, moving to 3-7 in extras on the year. Buffalo leads the season scoring by two runs now at 35-33 through nine games this year. They are up in the current series 2-1 and in the season series 6-3. The loss put Iowa just five games over .500 against Buffalo all-time, at 111-106 while going 61-45 all-time at home against the Bisons.

SHORT HOPS: Iowa dropped to 4-11 on Thursday's this year with the loss last night...the I-Cubs already have more hits this series (34) through three games than they did all last series against the Bisons when they collected 30 hits through the six-game set...coming into this series, Iowa had a single pitcher walk five batters in a game just once all year back on May 17; Iowa's starters in each of the last two nights have both walked five batters, making it now three times an I-Cubs pitcher has walked five batters in a single game...all nine starters in Iowa's lineup collected a hit last night, with four registering multi-hit efforts; Iowa combined to record 14 hits in the game with seven of them going for extra bases.

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