Cubs Minor League News: Mesa blanked at Sloan Park |
Dustin Riese
· · 2 hours ago
MESA - Talk about a painful night on the diamond for the Mesa Solar Sox. Not only have they struggled to win games this week as the runs have been challenging to come by, but Friday night was an all-time low for this team as their offensive struggles continued.
Facing off against the Scottsdale Scorpions at Sloan Park, it was the Scorpions who took the lead and never looked back as Scottsdale dominated the Solar Sox 11-0. As if scoring no runs wasn't bad enough, they managed just six hits, which is tough to do in Arizona, where the ball tends to fly out. You won't win many games when you can't hit the ball, and the Solar Sox are in an offensive rut right now that they would love to get out of sooner rather than later. As expected, one of the Cubs' hitting prospects continued to go about his business, as Owen Ayers has been on fire this season. Already with one player of the week honor, Ayers was making a case to win a second award in as many weeks earlier this week, but has since cooled off a bit. Even if he didn't drive anyone in, he still managed to pick up two more hits and has pushed his average to .364 for the season. As good as Ayers has been, Cole Mathis has been even better, at least from an average side of things, as he was the prospect with the most promise entering the Fall League. Mathis has been tearing the cover off the ball, evident by that .364 average, but Friday wasn't his day as he went hitless at the plate with a strikeout. Speaking of struggles, Ed Howard has had a rough go of things in the Arizona Fall League, and that is par for the course when you look at his career numbers up to this point. In less than five years, Howard has gone from one of the Cubs' top prospects to potentially playing his final season with Chicago as he has failed to live up to his first-round status. While the results have never been good, Howard has dealt with his share of injuries, and one has to wonder if that has contributed to his massive decline as a player. Howard continued his struggles on Friday as he went hitless with two punchouts, as he needs to pick things up soon. Those were the only prospects from the Cubs system to see action in this one, as all of their pitching prospects were given the night off in the blowout loss.
