The Hub City Spartanburgers Week in Review: Vol 2
Your High-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers, the Hub City Spartanburgers, are off today but are coming off their first home stand of the season. They battled the Bowling Green Hot Rods, who were tied atop the standings with them, going 3-3 over the 6 games and are in a three way tie for 1st in the south division of the South Atlantic League. Overall they have a +12 run differential, tops in their division, while having scored the most runs and allowed the fewest.
Last week we touched on the odd note that the squad didn’t hit a single home run during their first nine games but that changed very quickly with some home cooking as they combined for seven homers and well over 20 extra base hits. It wasn’t all good news this week though as Malcolm Moore, last year’s 1st round pick and top ten prospect in the system, will miss six to eight weeks with a fractured finger. In his only game this week he went two for three with a home run, a double and threw out a stealing base runner before getting injured. Here’s a quick look at other guys who made some noise with the bats this week:
- Arturo Disla clubbed his first two homers of the season and leads the club in slugging, RBI’s and tied for the lead in doubles. He’s one of the oldest guys on the team but hit 19 homers in just over 120 games last year split between low and high A. He’s limited to 1B or DH so his bat will have to carry him as he advances of the ranks.
- Dylan Dreiling, the top hitting prospect in Hub City with Moore on the shelf, also had a solid week hitting his first homer of the season while also collecting 5 walks versus just 3 K’s. For the season the 2024 second round pick is among the team leaders in hits, RBI’s and walks. He’s yet to hit for much power but his .346 OBP is promising.
- Anthony Gutierrez, the 20 year old CF, is slashing .308/.333/.346 but has already stolen 9 bases. His 14 K’s versus just one walk in 13 games is something to keep an eye on though.
- Theo Hardy, a 2024 undrafted college shortstop, played his first four games of the season had a remarkable stat line that consisted of just 2 hits but 6 RBI’s.
The pitching side of the club was a mixed bag where the starters put the club in a quick holes the first three games of the series with 12 total runs allowed in the first two innings of those games. Those runs, in just six innings, accounted for nearly 40% of the runs allowed in the entire 6 game series. Still though the club won two of those three and the relief pitching continues to be pretty stellar. I touched on last week that they weren’t striking a ton of people out but they were much better in that regard this week and have upped their SO9 from 9.0 to 9.5 on the season.
- The headline of the home stand was undoubtedly the performance of David Davalillo who threw 5 innings of perfect ball on Friday with 9 strikeouts. Actually he wasn’t perfect as he did allow a baserunner on a strikeout/wild pitch but he also ended up striking out 4 in that inning so nearly perfect, but who’s counting? For the season now, in 3 starts, he’s sporting a 0.79 ERA, 0.53 WHIP and has struck out 19 in just 11.1 innings. Davalillo, who’s already 22, could be headed to Frisco pretty soon if he strings together a good couple starts in a row.
- Jose Gonzalez, who we noted last week had yet to be scored on but wasn’t striking many guys out, flipped the script this week. In his one start he allowed 2 earned runs in 3.1 innings but struck out 5. His ERA on the season is still stellar at just 1.59.
- Larson Kindreich, a 25 year old 2021 draftee, appeared in two games last week picking up one save while not allowing any runs in 4 innings. He’s yet to be scored on in 2025 and his 9 strikeouts is second among non-starters while his 2 saves are tied for the team lead.
- Victor Simeon is the reliever leading the team in strikeouts with 10 although he’s thrown two more innings than Kindreich. Unfortunately though he also leads the club with 7 walks and three wild pitches.
The Spartanburgers have another 6 game home stand this coming week against the Greenville Drive, an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.
