{"id":821360,"date":"2026-10-04T12:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T12:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/821360\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T12:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T12:48:13","slug":"reds-prospects-help-fuel-a-comeback-win-in-afl-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/821360\/","title":{"rendered":"Reds prospects help fuel a comeback win in AFL season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Arizona Fall League got started on Saturday with a slate of three games. The Peoria Javelinas, the team that features eight Cincinnati Reds prospects, played the late night game against Mesa. They didn\u2019t even start the game until 9:30pm ET.<\/p>\n

Things did not start out well for Peoria as the Solar Sox scored a run in the 1st to take a lead and then scored five runs in the 3rd inning to make it 6-0. Mesa didn\u2019t score again. And part of that is because Reds prospect Victor Diaz<\/a> came through with 2.0 shutout innings of relief. He worked a 1-2-3 top of the 5th inning that began with an 11-pitch at-bat that resulted in a strikeout. He returned for the 6th and worked himself into and out of a jam as he walked two and gave up a single, but mixed in a double play and a strikeout.<\/p>\n

It was the bottom of the 6th inning that really helped get Peoria back into the game. They were trailing 6-1 entering the inning. Carter Graham<\/a>, who started the game at third base and was hitting third in the lineup, walked and then stole second base. He would then come in to score on a home run that capped off a 4-run inning and made it 6-5.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the game remained until the bottom of the 9th. Carlos Sanchez<\/a>, who started the game at shortstop and was 0-1 with two walks entering the inning, drew his third walk of the night. He then scored from first base on a double to tie the game up. Five pitches later a line drive to the wall ended the game in a walk off for the Javelinas.<\/p>\n

Victor Diaz threw 2.0 innings and allowed a single, walked two batters, struck out two batters, and threw 40 pitches with 23 strikes. He topped out at 97.6 MPH on the night with his fastball that also got four swinging strikes on the night. Diaz threw his fastball 23 times and it was a strike 17 times. Of his secondary offerings he only threw six strikes on 17 pitches.<\/p>\n

Carlos Sanchez popped up in his first at-bat of the game. He then walked in the other three plate appearances that he had in the game. Sanchez would steal a base in the game but was stranded at second base that inning.<\/p>\n

Carter Graham has played plenty of third base in his career, but in 2026 he spent a lot more time at first base while mixing in time at third, as the designated hitter, and getting his first experience as a professional in left field. He made a throwing error in the 8th inning when his throw pulled the first baseman off of the bag just long enough for the runner to get to the bag first. The error didn\u2019t cost Peoria as the next three batters went down in order.<\/p>\n

At the plate Graham went 0-3 with a walk and three strikeouts. It was a tough night for Graham as he swung at nine pitches, fouled three off, then missed the other six. All six swinging strikes were on sliders. Three of those sliders were in the zone. All three of his strikeouts came on swinging strikes on sliders that were not close to being in the zone.<\/p>\n

The Arizona Fall League is the only fall or winter league that will be playing games until both the Mexican and Venezuelan Winter Leagues take the field on October 13th. The Dominican Winter League begins a few days later on the 16th. Games don\u2019t begin in the Puerto Rican Winter League until November 4th. And then on November 19th the games will begin in the Australian Winter League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Arizona Fall League got started on Saturday with a slate of three games. The Peoria Javelinas, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,27110,99945,535,50,4259,4,536,99946],"class_list":["post-821360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-reds","tag-baseball","tag-carlos-sanchez","tag-carter-graham","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cincinnatireds","tag-mlb","tag-reds","tag-victor-diaz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117382722584183823","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}