D-backs Farm Rumblings: Duplantier shines in Triple-A debut

• Jon Duplantier, Arizona’s second-best prospect according to MLB.com, debuted in the Majors before he did so in Triple-A, but his first outing for the Aces was not a disappointment. The right-hander started Friday night, and hurled three hitless innings during a 6-4 loss to El Paso. Duplantier struck out four and walked one while needing only 37 pitches to record nine outs.

Back from a stint in the Majors, Jon Duplantier was sizzling for @Aces. The #Dbacks No. 2 prospect tossed three hitless innings Friday night.
Story 👉https://t.co/NxXL1mWqIz pic.twitter.com/3MyJQRwsIl

— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) April 13, 2019

• Reno’s Travis Snider is absolutely raking in his first season with the Aces. The 31-year-old former first-round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays batted .522 (12-for-23) for the week, with two doubles. Snider is hitting .500 on the young season. He doesn’t fit the “prospect” label anymore, but with 1,783 big-league at-bats on his résumé, he could be an emergency outfield fill-in for Arizona at some point in 2019.

• Reno outfielder Andrew Aplin, a former Arizona State Sun Devil, got into the spirit of the Masters Sunday by wearing a red golf shirt (hat tip to Tiger Woods) underneath his jersey. No word on whether he wore black pants under his uniform though.

SPORTS #themasters pic.twitter.com/lSo1ugbGXT

— Reno Aces (@Aces) April 14, 2019

• Meanwhile, in Jackson, it’s been a slow start for D-backs’ top prospect Jazz Chisholm. The 21-year-old Bahamian shortstop is batting just .037 (1-for-27) on the season. His one hit was a two-run homer in a 4-2 win over Chattanooga Wednesday night. Chisholm is coming off a season during which he hit .272 for Visalia and Kane County and then hit .442 in the Arizona Fall League.

#Dbacks top prospect Jazz Chisholm, who homered 25x in 2018, picked up his first hit of the season for the @jacksongenerals — a 2-run 🚀 that drove in No. 4 Daulton Varsho.

Live stats for top @Dbacks prospects: https://t.co/SyltjfkMqE pic.twitter.com/CdXPMOQQ3K

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 11, 2019

• Jackson right-hander Emilio Vargas has picked up right where he left off in 2018. The 22-year-old made his second start of the season Thursday night, hurling four shutout innings in a 6-2 loss to Chattanooga. So far in 2019, Vargas has yielded just one earned run in 10 innings of work, while striking out eight and walking only one.

• The trio of Jeff Bain, Cole Bartlett and Matt Brill was almost perfect Sunday for Visalia in a 2-0 win over San Jose. Bain, a 23-year-old right-hander, started and went six innings, allowing just one hit — a leadoff single in the first — before handing things over to the bullpen. Bartlett pitched two spotless innings before Brill came in and struck out the side for his first save of the season, and 14th in his minor league career.

• Kane County second baseman L.T. Tolbert, a 13th-round pick out of South Carolina last summer, had a career night Saturday for the Cougars in a 9-3 win over Peoria. Tolbert went 2-for-3 with two home runs (the first two of his pro career) and seven RBI in the contest. The 22-year-old got started early with a grand slam in the first to give Kane County a 4-0 lead. Then, in the third, he clubbed a three-run shot that scored Andy Yerzy and Alek Thomas. Tolbert did show a little pop in his college days, registering 14 home runs in 174 games for the Gamecocks.

#Dbacks prospect L.T. Tolbert smacks his first two Minor League homers on a career day for @KCCougars. https://t.co/zJpS7oVFDH pic.twitter.com/AAryGFdrUH

— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) April 13, 2019

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