IL Iowa Cubs

July 29 Game Notes: Iowa Cubs at St. Paul Saints

Published on July 29, 2022 under International League (IL)
Iowa Cubs News Release


IOWA CUBS (43-52) @ ST. PAUL SAINTS (45-49)

Friday - 7:07 PM - CHS Field - Saint Paul, MN

RHP Caleb Kilian (3-1, 3.63) vs. RHP Jordan Balazovic (0-4, 10.41)

TONIGHT'S GAME: Iowa will send right-hander Caleb Kilian to the mound tonight looking to end their two-game losing streak. Kilian is scheduled to make his team-leading 16th start of the year for Iowa and his third against the Saints. The Cubs' No. 6 prospect earned his third win of the year last time out, allowing just one hit and one walk while striking out eight over five innings back on July 23. Toeing the rubber for the Saints will be righty Jordan Balazovic. The 23-year-old is still in search of his first win with St. Paul, going 0-4 with a 10.41 ERA in 12 games so far this year. He has allowed 37 earned runs on 58 hits including 12 home runs over 32.0 innings. In those 32 innings, the right-hander has struck out 30 batters compared to 16 walks, while opponents are hitting .392 against him. Balazovic has made two starts against Iowa this year, allowing three runs on 10 hits over seven innings.

LIKE HE NEVER LEFT: Sean Newcomb made his first start of the season last night and his first start overall since August 10, 2020. The southpaw started his career as a starter and pitched his first 120 professional games out of the rotation before making his first relief appearance in his final game of 2018. Since that last game in 2018 with Atlanta, Newcomb was almost exclusively used as a reliever, making just 11 starts out of 110 appearances between Triple-A Gwinnett and Atanta from 2019-2021. Since joining Iowa at the end of June, the 29-year-old has been stretching back out, pitching at least two innings in every appearance in the month of July. After allowing three earned runs in his first appearance of July, Newcomb had been lights-out entering last night's game with a 12.1 scoreless inning streak. His start went well last night, throwing four innings of one-run ball, allowing three hits and three walks while striking out a season-high eight batters. The one run he allowed in the second inning ended his scoreless inning streak at 14.0 games, but he started a new streak, using eight strikeouts and three groundouts to work around any trouble he was in.

MULTI-HIT MAGIC: Four of Iowa's nine starters last night recorded multi-hit games, combining to account for eight of Iowa's 11 total hits as a team. The four players with multi-hit games also collected six of Iowa's seven extra-base hits in last night's game. Major League rehabber Nick Madrigal went 2-for-4 with a double, Narciso Crook went 2-for-4 with a double and a triple, Matt Mervis went 2-for-4 with two doubles and Nelson Maldonado went 2-for-4 with a double. The lone player to record an extra-base hit without two hits in the game was John Hicks, going 1-for-4 with a solo home run.

(K)ILIAN DAY: Chicago Cubs top pitching prospect Caleb Kilian is set to make his 16th start of the year with Iowa and 19th of the year including his three games with Chicago. The righty made his Major League debut back on June 4 against St. Louis and pitched in two other games on June 15 and 20 but has since been with Iowa for his last five starts. He has struggled with command at times this year, walking a career-high 26 batters in 62.0 innings with Iowa and 12 batters in 11.1 innings with Chicago. The 25-year-old will look to build off his last performance on Saturday, when he spun five innings of one-hit ball, walking one and striking out eight. Kilian leads the team with 78 strikeouts and ranks ninth in the International League despite spending time with Chicago.

LONG TIME NO SEE: After going 3-1 with a 2.08 ERA over nine games with Iowa to open the 2022 campaign, Matt Swarmer got his contract selected by Chicago. The righty made his Major League debut with the Cubs on May 30 against Milwaukee and was up with Chicago for 11 games spanning from May 30 - July 12. He was optioned to Iowa on July 13 and designated for assignment three days later. Swarmer cleared waivers and was sent outright to Iowa on July 21 and made his first appearance since throwing one inning on July 12 last night. The righty got touched-up a little bit, allowing two earned runs on four hits including a home run, while walking a batter and striking out none. The outing was just his second all year, including his time with Chicago, that Swarmer didn't strike out a single batter, with the first also coming against St. Paul back on May 5.

STAY HOT: Narciso Crook entered the All-Star break with a .252 (52-for-206) average with Iowa, while also making his Major League debut with Chicago in the first half of the season. As good as his first half was, the outfielder has had an extremely impressive start to the second half of his season, collecting at least one hit in all six games he has played. He has also clubbed a home run in three of the six games, including two long balls on July 23 against Omaha. His six straight games with a hit out of the All-Star break put his hitting streak at a season-long eight games, just one away from his career high in 2015 with Single-A Daytona. Despite not hitting a home run last night, the outfielder did club a double and a triple, driving in two of Iowa's four runs. His two runs batted in last night gave Crook 11 multi-RBI games this year, good for the team lead, three more than any other I-Cubs player. He also leads the team in home runs with 15 and is fourth on the team with 15 multi-hit games. Crook's recent hot streak moved him onto the leaderboards in the International League, placing him fifth in slugging percentage (.543) and sixth in OPS (.899).

AGAINST ST. PAUL: Iowa and St. Paul will play game four of their six-game set tonight, with the St. Paul leading the series two games to one. Iowa took game one by a score of 6-2, but the Saints have won each of the last two games to take a series lead entering tonight. With the back-to-back losses, Iowa is now 6-9 on the year against the Saints and one game under .500 here at CHS Field, at 4-5. They moved to 14 games under .500 against St. Paul all-time, going 18-32 while being six games under here on the road at 13-19. Through the first three games of the series, the Saints are outscoring Iowa by just one run, 16-15.

SHORT HOPS: With their loss last night, Iowa dropped to 4-12 on Thursday's including just 1-7 on the road; it is the lowest amount of wins they have on any day aside from Monday...last night was the fifth time Iowa has allowed a walk-off against them this year, they also have five walk-offs on the year...the I-Cubs dropped to 28-13 when they record 10 or more hits, losing with an 11 in the hit column last night...last night's walk-off marked Iowa's eighth loss of the year when they lead after seven innings, going 33-8 when they hold the lead with two innings to play.

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