The Hub City Spartanburgers Week in Review
The Hub City Spartanburgers, the high A affiliate if your Texas Rangers, have made it through their first full week of games and are about to have their first ever official home game of the 2025 season tonight. They’re currently 5-4, tied for the South Division lead in the South Atlantic League and have scored 39 runs while allowing 33 runs.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to notice that they haven’t exactly been an offensive juggernaut through the first 9 games, averaging just over 4 runs per game. They’ve also yet to hit their first home run of the young season but that doesn’t mean that no one is swinging the bat well. One number that really stands out through the first week of play is how active they are on the bases with 17 stolen bases versus 6 caught stealing. Of the 13 guys who taken an at bat all but four of them have stolen at least one base and four guys have already stolen multiple bases. Another number that jumps out, for a different reason though, is the number of strikeouts this squad has already amassed with 95.
- 20 year old Anthony Gutierrez is off to fast start slashing .313/.333/.344 and while he’s leading the team in hits (10) and stolen bases (4), he’s only registered one extra base hit so far. He played most last year at the same level yet is still very young compared to the rest of the league. He spent most of last season at high A as well so anything over his .633 OPS last year is going to considered progress.
- Keith Jones, last year’s 9th round pick, is also off to a quick start in his first full season of minor league ball with a .798 OPS. He’s being patient at the plate with 7 walks so far and has already swiped 3 bags. Obviously the sample size is extremely small but it’s encouraging this lefty hitter has hit southpaws very well through the first week of the season as well.
- Malcolm Moore, last year’s 1st round pick, is slashing .222/.432/.296 so while he’s getting on base at a very good clip (9 BBs), he’s similar to the rest of the team with very few hits going for extra bases so far. Moore did hit three homers last year in just 25 games at high A so the power is certainly there but hasn’t appeared yet in 2025.
Much like the big league club, the arms are carrying the load so far for the Spartanburgers, allowing just 3.67 runs a game which is good for 2nd in the South Atlantic league. It will be interesting to see how much of that holds up though as they’re not logging many strikeouts (9.1 SO/9) and walking guys at a rate just above league (5 BB/9 vs 4.7 BB/9).
- Paul Bonzagni, a 2023 12th round pick, is off to a strong start with a 2.08 ERA across 8.2 innings with 13 K’s and just three walks. His most recent start was especially encouraging as he threw strikes at a greater than 60% rate and generated 13 swinging strikes. So far on the young season he’s doing a great job of keeping the ball down and it’s resulting a in ground ball rate of over 68%.
- David Davalillo is also off to a strong start with a 1.42 ERA across his first two starts. In 6.1 innings he’s logged 10 strikeouts versus just three walks. With continued success he’s a guy who could start generating some buzz after a strong 2024 season in which he dominated at times with a 1.88 ERA in 26 starts across two levels of A ball. He turned some heads at spring training and could very well end up in Frisco by mid-season.
- Lastly Jose Gonzalez has yet to be scored on in his two starts, both of which lasted 4 innings. He’s not striking out a ton of guys, just 6 K’s thus far but he’s also only allowed 7 hits and 2 walks.
The upcoming week should be a good one with Hub City hosting fellow leaders of the South Division, the Bowling Green Hot Rods for the next 6 games.
