The Dominican Summer League regular season is coming down to one last day, and the Brewers and Cubs are about to settle a small but meaningful piece of business: who takes the Central Division crown. Both clubs are headed to postseason play, but Tuesday’s finales still carry bragging rights, with the Cubs sitting just a half-game behind the Brewers’ Gold team entering the final slate.
Gold will finish at home against a 22-32 Pirates Gold club, while Cubs Blue draws a 20-35 Tigers 1 team. The standings picture around the league has gotten tight enough to make every result matter, and the Brewers’ other DSL club, Blue, is still hanging around at 31-23 even if the path looks thin.
There are fourteen teams with 21 losses or fewer, two non-division winners sitting at 22 losses, and Blue among five teams with 23 defeats. It’s not officially over, but the outlook is bleak.
There was no official transaction report, even though social media buzzed about promotions for Luis Pena and the Ebel brothers. Those moves are expected to be formally included in Tuesday’s Link Report.
Gold’s game on the day was a shortened one, and 19-year-old right-hander Derlin Garcia took the loss after allowing the only earned run in the first inning. The other run came in the fourth after a leadoff single quickly snowballed into trouble, with two wild pitches and a wild throw by recently turned 17-year-old catcher Francisco De Marchena helping the second run cross. Gold’s lone run came in the sixth on a fielder’s choice, with second baseman Leanders Matos supplying the only hit in the inning.
Ricki Moneys singled to open the game, then was caught stealing immediately for the fifth time in 32 attempts. Frandy Lafond also singled to start the second, reached second before the inning ended, and did not return to the field. The game log didn’t show an injury, and his only movement in the inning came after a teammate walked.
The DSL postseason format is a little different from the usual bracket setup. Sixteen teams qualify from the 51-team league: the eight division winners by winning percentage and the eight best non-division winners. Those clubs go into pool play, split into four groups of four, and the pool winners advance to a best-of-three semifinal and final round.
Blue’s late-game finish was the kind that can make a box score look stranger than the game actually felt. Manny De Los Santos, 17, ended it with a bases-loaded single to drive in the decisive run.
He’s been one of the more unusual offensive profiles in the league, hitting .208/.438/.288 with 28 steals in 30 tries. He has walked or been hit by pitch in 29.2% of his plate appearances and struck out 29.8% of the time, so he’s seeing plenty of pitches.
Diego Frontado reached base four times with two singles, a walk and a hit by pitch. He’s one of only six players in the league with double-digit home runs, sitting at ten along with his former Blue teammate Leanders Matos, and his .989 OPS was part of the talent moved out of Blue in last week’s swap to strengthen Gold before the postseason.
Three other Brewers reached base three times, and Enrique Lovera supplied Blue’s lone extra-base hit with a double. The full game log was busy enough to keep things moving, with the teams combining to score in ten different half-innings.
Colombian right-hander Carlos Galindo picked up his sixth win despite a five-inning outing that required some survival work, allowing runs in three separate frames.
Elsewhere on Tuesday’s schedule, Nashville, Biloxi and Wilson are on the road to open new series, while Wisconsin begins a two-week homestand.
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