Pitching dominates, Cunningham breaks out for IronBirds in series loss to Greenville

By: Michael Marcantonini

In a series dominated by pitching, the Aberdeen IronBirds picked up a couple big wins over the Greenville Drive this past week at Leidos Field at Ripken Stadium. The IronBirds started and finished strong by winning the first and last games of the series, and despite losing four straight in the middle of the week, they remain only 1.5 games out of a playoff spot with 18 games left in the regular season.

The IronBirds never trailed in either of the games that they won on Tuesday and Sunday, respectively, and they scored six runs in both games. Trey Gibson, who started the series opener and came out of the bullpen in the finale, combined to throw 8 2/3 innings and allowed just two runs with seven strikeouts and only two walks. Daniel Lloyd pitched in both of those games as well and limited the Drive to three runs in seven innings with eight strikeouts.

The four middle games of the series were all tight and although the Birds lost all four, Greenville outscored Aberdeen by only 10 combined runs in those games, including two that were decided by one run. While the bats were quiet, three of the team’s best pitching performances of the year came from Zach Fruit, Nestor German and Edgar Portes. Fruit started on Wednesday, went a career-high 5 1/3 innings with six strikeouts, and retired the first nine batters of the game. German collected five strikeouts in 4 2/3 scoreless innings of relief on Thursday night and retired all 14 batters he faced, which is a new season-high for consecutive batters retired by an IronBirds pitcher. Portes started on Saturday and tied his career-high with eight strikeouts in four shutout frames and moved into second place in the South Atlantic League with 110 strikeouts on the season.

The Birds’ pitching staff was locked in, but even in a low-scoring series, the bats made some noise. Jake Cunningham, who was promoted to High-A before the start of the series, went 9-for-17 with two walks, three RBI and six stolen bases in five games, earning South Atlantic League Player of the Week honors. He had three three-hit games, including in his team debut in Tuesday’s win, and his four stolen bases on Thursday night tied an IronBirds single-game individual franchise record. In just his second week at High-A, Aron Estrada ripped two triples and a double and walked six times, good for a .409 on-base percentage during the series. Aneudis Mordan, who was called up this week, had three hits in the series, including two doubles on Saturday night.

The most notable team accomplishment this week came on Wednesday night. When Douglas Hodo III stole second base in the fifth inning, he ran the IronBirds into the history books. It was the IronBirds’ 314th stolen base of the season, which set a new Minor League record for most stolen bases by a team in the regular season during the Statcast Era (since 2015). The previous record holder, the 2017 Lancaster JetHawks, had 313 regular season steals in 140 games and the IronBirds flew by that mark in just 110 games. The Birds now have the most stolen bases in any Minor League season since the 1988 Osceola Astros had 360 in 1988.

After an off day on Monday, the IronBirds will remain in Aberdeen for six more home games against the Winston-Salem Dash from Tuesday through Sunday, August 20-25. To purchase tickets and for more information about upcoming games and promotions, head over to http://www.goironbirds.com.