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Here are the weirdest stats, plays from the final month of the MiLB season

By Benjamin Hill @BensBiz
October 1, 2024

Welcome to Crooked Numbers, a monthly column dedicated to Minor League Baseball on-field oddities and absurdities. The edition, rounding up the month of September, encapsulates the end of the regular season as well as the playoffs. Thanks for reading this season, and here's to an even more "Crooked" 2025.

Welcome to Crooked Numbers, a monthly column dedicated to Minor League Baseball on-field oddities and absurdities. The edition, rounding up the month of September, encapsulates the end of the regular season as well as the playoffs. Thanks for reading this season, and here's to an even more "Crooked" 2025.

Title trifecta

The Omaha Storm Chasers won the International League championship this season, dispatching the Columbus Clippers in a best-of-3 series. In doing so, they became the first Triple-A team to win a title in three different leagues. The Storm Chasers, a Kansas City affiliate since their 1969 inception, played in the American Association through 1997 and won four championships. They then moved to the Pacific Coast League, where they added three more before switching to the International League in 2021.

Taking a whole bunch for the team

Luke Adams played 101 games for the High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers this season and hit just .227. That makes the Midwest League-leading .443 OBP -- 42 points higher than any other player -- even more impressive. The Brewers' No. 8 prospect topped the circuit with 78 walks and got hit by a pitch 40 times, establishing a league record in the process. And, again, he did all that in just 101 games!

When Adams was plunked for the 39th time on Sept. 4, the 20-year-old third baseman broke the league record set in 2017 by Nick Sinay of the Lansing Lugnuts. Sinay played just 79 games that season, getting hit by a pitch (38) more often than he walked (32)!

Real pain, then champagne

It’s every kid’s dream: knocking in the winning run to win your team a championship. Kyle Karros of the High-A Spokane Indians did just that on Sept. 14, although he did it in a way seldom dreamed of. Batting with one out and the bases-loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning, Karros was plunked by the Vancouver Canadians' Geison Urbaez on the first pitch of the at-bat. After a brief reaction to the pain, he jubilantly trotted to first base, where he was mobbed by his teammates for his sacrificial heroics.

This was the craziest ending to a Northwest League Championship Series since the Eugene Emeralds won on a “balk-off” in 2018 (against Spokane, no less).

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Nothing but glove

An even more obscure walk-off variant occurred on Sept. 4 as the Double-A Reading Fightin Phils capped a furious ninth-inning rally with a walk-off catcher’s interference. The Phillies affiliate entered the frame trailing, 5-2, but an ensuing display of small ball -- four singles and two walks -- resulted in a tie ballgame. Otto Kemp stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and one out and worked the count to 2-2. On the next pitch Philly's No. 28 prospect hit a foul ball and the catcher’s glove, enabling Reading to win in most improbable fashion.

Herget while the Hergetting's good

The Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers' Jimmy Herget pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief for the Braves affiliate against the Nashville Sounds on Sept. 4, leaving the game after recording the third out in the bottom of the fifth frame. The very next pitcher to take the mound -- the Brewers affiliate's fresh arm for the top of the sixth -- countered with two scoreless innings. That fresh arm? Kevin Herget.

Jimmy and Kevin -- no relation -- are the only known Hergets to have ever played baseball professionally.

What goes around comes around

In the fifth start of his professional career on June 26, 2014, Daniel Missaki of the Pulaski Mariners recorded nine strikeouts. Four starts later, he did it again. But it would take the right-hander took him more than a decade to strike out that many in a Minor League game again.

On Sept. 13, Missaki took the mound for the Tennessee Smokies, the Cubs' Double-A affiliate, and tied his career high by striking out nine Birmingham Barons batters. The 28-year-old was out of affiliated baseball from 2016-23, when he undertook a global journey that included stints with teams in his native Japan, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia and Mexico.

Donovan Walton, MVPPP (Most Valuable Position Player Pitching)

Ten pitchers made 10 or more appearances for the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats this season, including one who wasn’t a pitcher at all. This moonlighting man on the mound was 30-year-old utility player Donovan Walton, son of legendary Oklahoma State pitching coach Rob Walton.

Walton entered the season with just one pro pitching appearance. In 2022, he allowed three runs in a lone inning for the San Francisco Giants. This year was a different story. As chronicled in the April edition of this column -- and expounded upon in May -- Walton was the first River Cats “pitcher” to log two wins this season. These victories occurred over a three-day span, and in both, he logged two scoreless frames to close out extra-inning 9-8 road wins against the Reno Aces.

Walton went on to pitch eight more times for the River Cats, finishing with a 2-1 record and 2.25 ERA over 12 innings. And the icing on the cake? Walton was called up to the Giants on Sept. 13, and one day later, threw a scoreless inning against the Padres.

The hits just keep coming

On Friday, Sept. 13, every player in the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators' starting lineup hit safely and scored at least once en route to 14 runs overall. Only problem was, every batter in the opposing Albuquerque Isotopes' starting lineup also hit safely and scored at least one run.

The Isotopes (Rockies) overcame a 9-0 deficit in this topsy-turvy affair, storming back to take a 13-10 lead after seven innings. The Aviators (Athletics) mounted their own comeback to tie the game at 14-14 in the ninth, but Elehuris Montero hit a walk-off homer in the 10th to give the Isotopes a thoroughly improbable 16-14 win. This was a Friday the 13th like no other.

A large dose of small ball

The Triple-A Worcester Red Sox (Red Sox) beat the Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Phillies) on Sept. 17 by a score of 14-9. This final tally might lead the casual observer to deem it a “slugfest.” The casual observer would be wrong. No home runs were hit in the game, and just four hits went for extra bases. There were 21 singles, 10 walks, a hit batsman and two errors. Runs also scored via a balk, double play and a wild pitch. Don’t judge a final score by its cover.

Ending at the beginning

March 29: The IronPigs began their season at home against the WooSox, winning 7-4 on a walk-off grand slam by Rodolfo Castro.

Sept. 22: The IronPigs end their season at home against the WooSox, winning 7-4 on a walk-off grand slam by Darick Hall.

This remarkably similar way of starting and ending a season will henceforth be known as a “Grand Salami Sandwich.”

Benjamin Hill is a reporter for MiLB.com and writes Ben's Biz Blog. Follow Ben on Twitter @bensbiz.

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