Farmers Only - Welcome to Rece Hinds, Double-A

Injuries and the lack of an entire 2020 minor league season have served to keep Rece Hinds from making any sort of full full-season noise, and 2022 has been no different. He had his ups and downs with High-A Dayton this year, a mid-year hamate bone injury being the culprit this time around, and while his overall numbers for the Dragons weren’t world-beating, he showed at age-21 that there’s still an immense amount of talent within his powerful bat.

Dayton’s season is over, with Rece having played just 67 games for them, and in an effort to get him as many reps as possible, the Reds sent him to AA-Chattanooga to keep on bonkin’ while the games are being played...

Chattanooga Lookouts 6, Tennessee Smokies 2 (AA)

Rece Hinds wasted little time making noise in his AA debut, mashing a laser over the CF wall for a homer while also doubling, too. His homer was completely mashed:

That’ll play, Rece. That’ll play.

Matt McLain homered and swiped his 25th bag as a Lookout as part of a broader big evening, while Garrett “Dire” Wolforth tacked on a homer of his own, too. Elly “Three Feet High and Rising” De La Cruz had a pair of singles and swiped 3 more bases, bringing his combined total for the season up to an absurd 46.

It was a good night for the Christians, too, as Encarnacion-Strand had a pair of hits to back Roa, who followed up his pitcher o’ the week award with 6.0 IP of 1 H, ER, 4 BB, 5 K ball.

Their season is winding down quickly, but man, this is a super-fun Lookouts roster at the moment.

St. Paul Saints 8, Louisville Bats 1 (AAA)

The little solace I can give baseball fans in Louisville who have watched what I believe to be the 77th consecutive losing season by the Bats is that the roster in Chattanooga right now should all be up to the Ohio River by mid-spring next year. Baseball fans in Cincinnati, well, you’ll just get to wait another year on top of that.

Mike “Soda” Papierski socked a homer for Louisville’s lone run, while Connor Overton (3 R, 0 ER in 2.2 IP) was healthy enough to make a rehab start, finally. Mike Siani made his AAA debut with an 0 for 4 night out of the leadoff spot.