UVA Baseball alum Zach Messinger got the start for Somerset, the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees, in a 5-4 win over the Richmond Flying Squirrels in the teams’ 2024 season opener on Friday.
Messinger, a 13th-round pick by the Yankees in the 2021 MLB Draft, was 5-3 with a 4.42 ERA in three seasons at Virginia, in 51 appearances, 11 starts.
His win-loss record in the minors is, you know, not good – 2-18 – but the underlying numbers are fine.
In 54 appearances, 38 starts, across the past three seasons, Messinger has a 4.25 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, and 11.2 K/9.
In Friday’s opener, Messinger, the #23 prospect in the Yankees farm system, per MLB.com, allowed four runs, but only one of them was earned, on four hits in five and two-thirds innings, striking out five and walking one.
***
In Fredericksburg, Jarlin Susana, the #10 prospect in the Washington Nationals farm system, per MLB.com, gave up an unearned run in three innings of work in the FredNats’ 4-2 win over the Delmarva Shorebirds in the season opener for the A teams on Friday.
Susana allowed two hits and struck out four in his first outing of the 2024 season.
***
Down in Charlotte, the Norfolk Tides scored 10 in the first, but then went scoreless until the top of the 10th, getting the go-ahead run on an Errol Robinson RBI single to steal the 11-10 win.
Heston Kjerstad, the #4 prospect in the Baltimore Orioles farm system, had a three-run homer in the win, his sixth of the season, and Kyle Stowers also hit his sixth homer of the season for the Tides, a two-run shot in that big first inning.
Share
Chris Graham
