​The Guardians closed out pre-break play with a sweep of the Marlins and handed out their selections for rounds 5 through 20 yesterday. Brian Hemminger has highlighted day two of the draft in his recap, and a full draft-class breakdown will be posted soon. Nicole summarized an encouraging win and a complete series sweep in her piece. Chase DeLauter and Steven Kwan head into the break on a noticeable hot streak, while Travis Bazzana is not riding the same wave.
Ralphy Velazquez delivered an RBI hit in MLB’s Futures Game yesterday and also flashed a nice first-base play. The Guardians announced a number of exciting internal promotions yesterday, and they said goodbye to Wuilfredo Antunez, Tommy Mace, and Joe Lampe. I’ve admired Antunez and Mace for a while; they seemed close to breaking through, but they couldn’t quite clear the final hurdles to become major leaguers.
MLB’s Home Run Derby is set for 8 PM tonight on Netflix, and here’s a preview of the field. In around-MLB news: the White Sox and Twins won, while the Tigers and Royals dropped their games. The Royals remain 21 games under .500, so I’ll refrain from reporting their results here unless they stage a dramatic turnaround. The most surprising development of the pre-break portion of the season has to be the Mets sitting 17 games below .500.