Sports stats

IL Iowa Cubs

July 6 Game Notes: Iowa at Indianapolis

July 6, 2022 - International League (IL)
Iowa Cubs News Release


TONIGHT'S GAME: Luke Farrell will take the ball for game two of the series tonight, set to pitch in his 10th game and make his seventh start for the I-Cubs. It will be his first start of the year against Indianapolis and just the second of his career. Farrell is 2-1 with a 4.40 ERA through his first nine games with the I-Cubs, allowing 15 earned runs on 26 hits. He has walked 15 batters while striking out 27, allowing his opponents to hit .226 against him. On the other side, Jerad Eickhoff is scheduled to make his eighth start and 15th appearance for Indianapolis. The righty is 5-3 with a 4.73 ERA, allowing 28 earned runs on 42 hits over 53.1 innings. He has pitched in one game against Iowa this year, throwing four innings of relief back on April 27. He allowed two runs on three hits and a home run, striking out a season-high seven batters in the outing.

TEDDY TWO HITS: Tyler Payne got two more hits on Monday, extending his hitting streak to tie a season long, at three games. The catcher has two hits in each of those three games and two hits in five of his last six games. Over that six-game stretch dating back to June 14, Payne is hitting .417 (10-for-24) with two doubles and three runs batted in. He has taken one walk over that span, bumping his on-bast percentage to .440. The 29-year-old is tied for fourth on the team with 11 multi-hit games, seven behind the team leader Dixon Machado who has played in 43 more games than Payne. He has recorded nine two-hit games, one three-hit and one four-hit effort. With the current hot streak at the plate, Payne has bumped his season average all the way up to .350, making him just one of two hitters on Iowa's active roster to have a batting average above .300.

AN UNLUCKY START: Javier Assad had a tough start to his Triple-A career, allowing a single on the first pitch he threw. That was followed by an error and then another single and error that allowed three runs to score before recording his first three outs. Despite allowing six more hits and two walks over his final 3.1 innings, Assad managed to keep Indianapolis off the board. The righty struck out two batters over his 4.1 innings, while inducing six groundouts compared to two flyouts.

SIX IN A ROW: With the loss on Monday, Iowa has now dropped six straight games, their longest losing streak of the season. Entering Monday's game, including the current streak they are on, they had three losing streaks of five games this year, but had not yet lost a sixth straight game before their extra-innings loss to the Indians. Their first five-game losing streak came from May 26-31, losing four games to the Memphis Redbirds and one to the St. Paul Saints. Later that week, they started their next five-game losing streak in the final game to St. Paul and their first four against the Toledo Mud Hens. Six straight losses is the most since the end of last year, when they lost the last eight games of their season from September 23 to October 3. In all, Iowa had four losing streaks of six or more games last year, with their longest streak being nine games from May 22 to June 1.

A WELCOME SIGHT: Although Iowa dropped their sixth straight game Monday night, the pitching staff held Indianapolis to five runs, with just three of those runs being earned. Aside from a rocky first inning in which Iowa committed two errors and allowed three runs to score, the I-Cubs pitching staff held the Indians off the board until the 10th inning. Iowa got scoreless efforts from three different relievers, just one shy of the amount of pitchers that threw a scoreless frame in their final five games against Columbus last series. All four relievers struck out a batter for their first recorded out, while three of the four struck out the first batter they faced entering the game. Each pitcher Iowa brought in had at least one strike out, with four of the five recording two or more. As a unit, the five pitchers walked just three total batters, the lowest walk total for Iowa since allowing just one in the series opener against the Clippers on June 28.

MAKING AN IMPACT: In his first game back from his Major League debut, Narciso Crook instantly made his presence felt, hitting a two-run home run to tie the game in the fifth inning on Monday. Prior to getting his contract selected by Chicago back on June 30, the outfielder hit .268 (42-for-157) in 47 games with Iowa. He played in four games with Chicago before getting optioned back to Iowa before Monday's game to make room for Seiya Suzuki who had been on the injured list since May 27. The 26-year-old had a slow start to the season, hitting just .154 (10-for-65) in his first 23 games with Iowa. As soon as May 26 hit, the outfielder started to really heat up, now hitting .348 (34-for-97) with five doubles and eight home runs in 25 games with the I-Cubs. In the first 23 games of the season, Crook had just one multi-hit game, while he has now registered 10 multi-hit performances over his last 25 games with the I-Cubs.

AGAINST INDIANAPOLIS: Iowa and Indianapolis will play game two of their six-game set tonight, with the Indians currently holding a 1-0 series lead after their extra-innings victory on Monday night. With the win, Indy moved to 1-0 against Iowa at Victory Field this year and 5-2 against the I-Cubs overall. The win pushed their all-time record to 52-33, while going 26-14 against Iowa here at Victory Field. Tonight will be game two of six in their current series and game two of 12 that the two teams will play in Indianapolis this season. Through the first seven games between the two teams, the Indians hold the series scoring lead by 10 runs, at 29-19.

SHORT HOPS: After losing in extra-innings on Monday, Iowa is now 3-6 in extras this year, getting outscored 20-7 in the 10th inning...July marks the first month Iowa has not recorded a win in either of their first two games and are now 0-4 in the month entering game two tonight...the first game of the series between Iowa and Indianapolis marked Iowa's first game on a Monday since September 2, 2019, when they beat the Memphis Redbirds 9-6 in their final regular season game of the year.

Check out the Iowa Cubs Statistics



International League Stories from July 6, 2022


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

Other Recent Iowa Cubs Stories



Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central