Peoria Chiefs (STL) @ Great Lakes Loons (LAD)
June 22, 2025
S: Evan Shaw
HR: Josh Kross (PEO), Josue De Paula (GL)
Attendance: 2,423
Time of Game: 3 hours, 1 minute
Stadium Facts
Location: Midland, MI
Opened: 2007
Capacity: 5,500
Level: High A
League: Midwest
Time of Game: 3 hours, 1 minute
Stadium Facts
Location: Midland, MI
Opened: 2007
Capacity: 5,500
Level: High A
League: Midwest
The Sunday morning drive from Grand Rapids to Midland across Central Michigan brought back childhood memories for me of going on a couple hour road trip mostly on two lane highways through rural areas, only to occasionally come upon one stoplight towns, something I used to experience all the time growing up in the Midwest. Midland is a pretty small town by affiliated baseball standards. It is one of three modest sized cities on the southwest side of Saginaw Bay (Saginaw and Bay City being the others). As such, Dow Diamond is not in a particularly sprawling location. I will try my best not to let the largely unenjoyable time I had on this afternoon cloud my judgement, because that was solely due to the oppressive heat and not the ballpark or anything under the team's control. The game time temperature was listed as 91 degrees, but I can assure you it only went up from there. The heat index was easily into triple digits. I'm not sure I've ever experienced a hotter baseball game in the month of June. At the beginning of the game, there was no shade to be found virtually anywhere in the seating areas. I took cover for several innings in the middle part before moving to seats that had become shaded for the final few innings.
Dow Diamond is actually quite nice. There is a huge parking lot beyond right field. But besides that, the ballpark grounds are very green, both inside and out. The area leading up to the home plate gate is covered with grass, trees and sidewalks. Inside the park, there is a ton of lawn seating available down the first base line and throughout the outfield. Trees line the exterior of the park in left field. There is a large party pavilion down the third base line. The main concourse is quite extensive and open to view the field, which came in very clutch on this particular day as I was able to escape the sun and still watch the game from various locations around the concourse. Suites sit above the concourse on the club level, the only seating areas that are not on the lower level. I was very jealous of the people in those suites on this particular afternoon. While I'm sure this is the case for all games, they definitely had the best seats in the house for this game. Unsurprisingly, there was not a very big crowd at this game, which I get the impression is not the norm. Frankly, if I lived in the area and could go to a game pretty much any time I wanted, I definitely would have skipped this one. That said, it was a relatively entertaining game for those of us who stuck it out.
For the second straight day, I watched a home team with a surplus of premier prospect talent. Great Lakes is an affiliate in the always strong minor league system of the Dodgers. Their lineup on this afternoon featured three current MLB.com top 100 prospects: outfielders Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope and Mike Sirota (DH in this game). De Paula was easily the best in this game, and maybe one of the most impressive prospects I've seen this year. Peoria scratched out the first run of the game in the second inning. Their starting pitcher Jose Davila was cruising early on, with strikeouts of six of the first seven batters he faced. But then he ran into trouble in the third. After a single and a walk, Kendall George tied the game with a sacrifice fly. Then De Paula followed with a towering opposite field fly ball to left that snuck over the fence for a two run homer. Perhaps it was aided by the wind as it looked like a routine fly ball off the bat. Impressive anyway though. He was then in the center of another rally in the fifth inning. He knocked in the Loons fourth run of the game on a single to center during which he advanced to second on a slight bobble by the center fielder. De Paula then stole third without a throw and scored on a sacrifice fly by Sirota. His stolen base was the second of four steals for the Loons in the inning, and it was the first of three steals in the game for De Paula. Great Lakes pretty much ran at will against Chiefs catcher Graysen Tarlow and a number of pitchers. They stole seven bases in the game. The fifth inning did finally end on a base running blunder by the Loons though as Joe Vetrano was picked off second. Great Lakes held a 6-1 lead at this point though. Peoria made it a game in the seventh. In his third inning of work on the mound, Great Lakes pitcher Brooks Auger may have run out of gas on this hot afternoon. He walked the first two hitters in the seventh followed by Won-Bin Cho chopping one past the shortstop to knock in a run. Then came a couple flyouts to De Paula in right, the second being a nice sliding catch near the foul line. Josh Kross didn't let Auger off the hook though. He hit a towering three run home run to right to make it a 6-4 game. That would be as close as it would get. The Chiefs weren't able to do anything with the three walks they took in the final couple innings. In fact, other than Kross' home run, they really let Great Lakes pitchers off the hook for their wildness. Loons pitchers walked nine batters, but the two in front of the home run were the only ones that scored. 6-4 was the final score.
The lone scheduled off day of this trip came at a pretty good time as it took me a while to recover from this outrageously hot afternoon at the ballpark. Monday was very hot too, so I spent almost all of it either inside or in my car as I drove down to Lansing, the capital city of Michigan.
Next ballpark: Jackson Field in Lansing, MI
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