Coming off his fourth quality start of the year and his third in his last five outings, Cardinals prospect Gordon Graceffo exited his Friday night start for Class AAA Memphis after five innings and four runs allowed. Graceffo struck out four and walked one on 89 pitches (56 strikes).
Graceffo improved to 6-5 on the year in Memphis’s rain-shortened 13-4 win over Omaha. He owns a 4.50 ERA in 12 starts and has struck out 59 batters in 64 innings in his second season in Triple-A.
Three of the four runs the 24-year-old right-hander allowed to Omaha came on two home runs — a solo homer in the second inning and a two-run blast in the third. One of the four runs Graceffo allowed was unearned after Omaha right fielder John Rave reached base on a fielding error to open the bottom of the first inning and scored on a single from center fielder Drew Waters.
The former fifth-round pick and 2022 Cardinals minor league pitcher of the year has allowed five home runs in his last three starts. The second of the two home runs he allowed to the Storm Chasers came on a changeup he left over the middle of the plate to Waters. Heading into Friday’s start, opposing hitters had one hit — a single — and a 40% whiff rate against Graceffo’s changeup, per Statcast.Â
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Here are other Friday performances from around the Cardinals farm system:
Right-fielder Jordan Walker, Class AAA Memphis: The 22-year-old singled twice, drove in a run, and stole a base against the Storm Chasers. The second of Walker’s two singles was lined to center field and drove home left fielder Matt Koperniak in the fourth inning of the Redbirds’ road win. With the two-for-four performance, Walker is six-for-22 (.273) with a .545 slugging percentage in his last five games. He is batting .268 with a .394 slugging percentage since getting optioned to Triple-A on April 24.
Outfielder Won-Bin Cho, Class High-A Peoria: As he continues to search for consistent offense, Cho went two-for-four with a pair of singles and two RBIs in Peoria’s 6-3 road loss to Fort Wayne. Cho, 20, entered Friday with one hit in his last 20 at-bats and had a .196 average. The multi-hit game, Cho’s eighth multi-hit performance in 41 games, lifted his average to .204. In his first season in High-A, the former international signee has a 35.9% strikeout rate and a 7.8% walk rate across 167 plate appearances for Peoria. A season ago, Cho posted a 21.7% strikeout rate and a 14.2% walk rate in 452 plate appearances in Low-A.
Right-handed pitcher Zack Showalter, Class Low-A Palm Beach: On a night where his fastball accounted for 37 of the 42 pitches he threw, Showalter notched five strikeouts and gave up three runs (one earned) in 2 1/3 innings of relief. The righty’s fastball velocity ranged in the low 90s. It led to eight whiffs and was landed for a called strike five times in Palm Beach’s 10-8 loss to Dunedin. Showalter entered the loss as Palm Beach held a 7-6 lead with one out and runners on first and third base in the ninth inning. The 20-year-old righty struck out the first batter he faced, but a throwing error from catcher Sammy Hernandez on a steal attempt by Dunedin allowed the runner from third to score to tie the ballgame the runner from first to advance to third. Showalter got a swinging strikeout to end the frame and strand the potential go-ahead run at third base.
After collecting a strikeout, allowing a walk, and striking out a second batter to begin the 10th inning, Showalter hit two consecutive batters, which advanced the automatic runner, who started the inning at second base, to score. Showalter induced a forceout to keep Palm Beach’s deficit at one run and, after the PB-Cards tied the ballgame in the bottom half of the 10th, returned to mound in the 11th inning. He struck out a fifth batter, allowed a single, and a two-run double with two outs before he was removed from the game. The relief outing was the 14th of the year for the 20-year-old, who was acquired from Baltimore at last year’s trade deadline. He’s struck out 41 batters in 24 2/3 inning of relief.