Returning to the mound at all this season was a win for Atlanta Braves top prospect Owen Murphy, but his success on the mound in his first four outings has blown away all expectations. With 5 1/3 scoreless innings under his belt on Saturday he moved up to 16 2/3 scoreless on the season — the most among all pitchers in minor league baseball without allowing a run so far.

(48-70) Gwinnett Stripers 3, (53-66) Louisville Bats 6

Jhancarlos Lara has shifted to the starting rotation for Gwinnett down the stretch with their need for innings and his to get extra work, and so far it hasn’t been a successful run for him. His control was awful on Saturday as he could not land his fastball for a strike, and despite okay swing-and-miss numbers he wasn’t able to finish at bats and get strikeouts. His control in particular waned as his start went deeper, with his walking or hitting five of the last six batters he faced. Lara’s success as a starter is secondary to development as he is expected to move back to the bullpen and is only in this role to get extra work, and despite his poor command in his past few outings he hasn’t been that inconsistent with his release point. He should be better once he gets back into his natural role. One positive takeaway from the mound was the success of Blake Burkhalter, who got on track after a few rough outings recently. His velocity has started to pick up as they have dialed his workload back and his cutter/fastball combo has success when he locates it, though he hasn’t been landing his changeup and curveball with much consistency lately. Burkhalter had his best command in awhile of the two primary pitches and it showed with him getting swing-and-miss and forcing only mediocre contact.

Gwinnett’s offense had a steep mountain to climb with Lara’s struggles, but they did make their case early in this game before fading down the stretch. Eddys Leonard obliterated a home run to open the Stripers side of the scoring march in the second inning, sending it out at 112 mph and over the bullpen onto the left field concourse at Coolray Field. With two outs Gwinnett was gifted a trio of walks to load the bases, bringing up Jesus Bastides in a clutch moment, and he delivered for them. Bastides whipped a line drive into left field that sunk in front of the fielder, bringing home two runs to give the Stripers a 3-2 lead. Carlos Rodriguez followed with a sharp fly ball, but he hit it to dead center field and it hung up for the final out. Gwinnett was putting up good contact early, but after the second inning they struggled to hit the ball solidly and only had two more hard hit balls the rest of the game.

Swing and Misses

Jhancarlos Lara – 9

Blake Burkhalter – 6

Enoli Paredes – 6

(47-63) Columbus Clingstones 3, (62-51) Biloxi Shuckers 13

Yikes. Not a banner day for the Clingstones pitching staff. It’s been tough sledding for Brett Sears since his promotion to Triple-A and subsequent demotion back down. He was able to have a good game last week, but otherwise he has been struggling to miss bats and in his past six outings has allowed 19 runs in 24 1/3 innings while only striking out 19 batters. Double-A hitters have a contact rate against Sears north of 80% so far, and while his low release does provide enough deception to keep his fastball from getting crushed, overall he lacks the power in his arsenal to throw the ball past good hitters consistently. While his command and his pitch mix have provided him a quick trip through the minor leagues and success against lower-level hitters, they are going to need to rework his approach to get him to the next level. His command has been a bit inconsistent as well in a couple of recent outings, with that mostly manifesting in balls left in poor locations getting hit.

The offense wasn’t going to keep up with Biloxi’s 13-run outburst, nor did they come particularly close to doing so. The offense has been a ton better in recent weeks and its led to them winning games quite often, but this was a day where they fell behind early and the wheels just came off all around. Cal Conley did provide a bit of surprise thump in the seventh inning, clearing the left field wall for a home run that broke a 117 game homerless drought. Patrick Clohisy has trailed off after that unsustainably hot start to his Double-A career, with strikeouts ticking up a bit over the past few games, but he broke out of a mini-slump with a two-hit night. Biloxi finally was able to keep David McCabe in check after he started the series 7-14 with four home runs and five walks, holding him to just a single in four at bats. They tried keeping the ball away from him which helped them early, but in the sixth inning a fastball drifted over the inner half and he was able to turn it around for a hot shot single into right field. He laced one to the opposite gap in the eighth inning as well, but a diving catch robbed him of a hit and potentially more extra bases, keeping him at just one hit on the game.

Swing and Misses

Shay Schanaman – 7

Brett Sears – 5

Landon Harper – 5

(48-63) Rome Emperors 4, (58-53) Bowling Green Hot Rods 0

Owen Murphy is on an unbelievable stretch of play, and it can’t be understated how impressive it is to be this good right after Tommy John surgery. His stuff is back to or perhaps even a bit better than it was prior to surgery, he’s missing bats, and while his command isn’t quite where it was just yet he has still been solid and isn’t walking many guys. It’s pure dominance. If you’ll allow me to stretch the end points back to last season he is on a 25 inning scoreless streak with only six hits and three walks allowed while striking out 37 batters. He set the bar high before he got injured and he keeps raising it, and even though Atlanta has every reason to be patient with him in the season immediately after surgery, he is working on forcing their hand with a promotion. It is incredibly rare to see a guy so seamlessly return from such a long layoff, and he looks every bit as good as the numbers say he has been.

With Murphy torching the Hot Rods the Rome offense didn’t have much ground to make up, and they were able to pour it on with 13 hits in this game. Without much extra base pop they didn’t put up any big innings, but steadily chipped away and kept pressure on Bowling Green, scoring in four separate innings. Logan Braunschweig has been incredible since being signed, with a contact rate of 93% and a bunch of line drives. He’s shown discipline at the plate and been a terror for hitters to try to get out, and though he isn’t hitting for much power and isn’t expected to, he added two doubles in this game to boost his numbers. Braunschweig’s lack of power is expected to be a hard limit on his ceiling, but his hit tool has played much better than expected in a short period of time in the Braves system, and while this level of contact is not sustainable especially as he advances it has been eye-opening. He has just enough pop that he should manage to keep solid contact numbers and not get overwhelmed at the upper levels, and he could end up as an interesting left handed bench bat.

Swing and Misses

Owen Murphy – 12

Logan Samuels – 3

David Rodriguez – 2

(60-49) Augusta GreenJackets 3, (52-61) Kannapolis Cannon Ballers 2

The Augusta GreenJackets are on fire with seven wins in a row, and despite their huge deficit in the division they have clawed just within striking distance of the Pelicans if Myrtle Beach hits a slump. Augusta trailed for most of the game, but it wasn’t for a lack of pitching from Rayven Antonio. Antonio has been struggling with his command over the past few weeks, but he was able to locate well in this game and really had success hitting corners and getting called strikes. His only “bad” inning came in the third, when he let up a one out infield single on a jammed roller to the left side. Two bunt singles followed, and suddenly he found himself in a bases loaded jam in need of a double play. He got one, but it snuck past a diving Dixon Williams and into right field for a base hit, scoring two runs and marking the fourth straight soft hit against Antonio. He was otherwise terrific and quite arguably great that inning as well, but got torched by bad luck and the offense struggled to get anything going. The hitters had no hits with runners in scoring position in the game, but they managed to manufacture a huge inning late thanks to poor relief work.

Eric Hartman kept his great work going out of the leadoff spot, flipping a bloop single into right field to get a rally started. He stole second and third successfully, putting him in position to score the first Augusta run on a fly out from Cody Miller. The GreenJackets drew three walks in the inning to load the bases, and reliever Carlton Perkins for the Cannon Ballers could not lock in. He walked home a run to tie the game, his third in a row since he entered the game, then uncorked a wild pitch which scored Dixon Williams and put the GreenJackets in the lead. Jackson Dannelley was incredible in two innings of relief, but the game got a bit scary in the ninth inning. Trent Buchanan let up a one out double, putting the tying run in scoring position, but in the biggest at bat of the game forced a pop out into shallow left field. He ran a 3-2 count to the next batter, but painted a sinker on the inside corner, getting a called third strike to close out another Augusta win. In total the Augusta staff struck out 14 batters and walked only one, leading the way in a win.

Swing and Misses

Rayven Antonio – 7

Jackson Dannelley – 4

Trent Buchanan – 3

(21-31) DSL Braves 12, (30-24) DSL Rays 5

Angel Carmona has been red hot in August, and with a hit and a walk in the blow out DSL win he has an 11 game on base streak and eight game hitting streak. During this hitting streak he has five extra base hits including a double on Saturday, while striking out only seven times. He got off to a slow start early this season but has been the team’s best hitter for a few weeks now, showing off power and contact skills. He wasn’t the MVP of this game though, that title belongs to Manuel Campos. Campus has been great in his own right, and put up his fourth multi-hit game out of his past five and his fourth extra base hit in that span. Campos has cut a chunk out of his strikeout rate so far this month, drawing four walks to only three strikeouts with four extra base hits. He has an OPS north of 1.000 overall in August.