Dow Diamond - Great Lakes Loons

Peoria Chiefs (STL) @ Great Lakes Loons (LAD)

June 22, 2025

Loons 6, Chiefs 5

W: Alex Makarewich
L: Jose Davila

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

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.

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Next ballpark: Jackson Field in Lansing, MI

LMCU Ballpark - West Michigan Whitecaps

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (MIL) @ West Michigan Whitecaps (DET)

June 21, 2025

Whitecaps 4, Timber Rattlers 1

W: Joe Miller
L: Ryan Birchard

S: Carlos Lequerica

Attendance: 8,266
Time of Game: 2 hours, 42 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Comstock Park, MI
Opened: 1994
Capacity: 9,000
Level: High A
League: Midwest

While I have spent plenty of time in the state of Michigan over the years, this trip took me to three parts of the state that were pretty new to me.  I started the extremely hot weekend in the Grand Rapids area, the second largest city in the state behind Detroit.  One of the questions I had leading up to this trip is how West Michigan came to be the Tigers Midwest League affiliate.  There are three teams in that league in the state of Michigan, all well within Tigers Country.  Presumably, all three would pick the Tigers as their parent club if the choice was up to them.  Lansing is the closest to Detroit and Great Lakes probably has the nicest, most modern facility.  So why West Michigan?  I don't have a definitive answer, but based on what I experienced on this evening, I suspect it is a combination of the larger metropolitan area where the team resides and a community that strongly supports the team and baseball in general.

There was a huge crowd at this game, despite the toasty conditions.  It was also rather windy, which made the conditions a bit more bearable.  It was Star Wars night, and boy did they go all out with that.  There must have been a couple dozen people dressed up as various Star Wars characters in an official capacity taking photos with fans all over the concourse before the game.  There was even a R2D2.  The stadium has a rather unassuming exterior and interior in many respects, but some unique design characteristics.  An aisle bisects the main grandstand, which is common in parks with a main concourse under the seats.  But in this case, the concourse is above the seating area and allows views of the field from everywhere.  There are a bunch of party and patio areas down both first and third base lines and a two level stadium club in right-center field.  The upper deck only consists of suites and media booths.  There are more legit seats in this ballpark than just about any A level park I've seen, which is largely out of necessity since I've come to learn they are always among the attendance leaders in that level of the minor leagues.  One unique design element is that the bullpens are actually beyond the outfield wall in right field.  That is very uncommon in MiLB, much less High A.  While LMCU Ballpark is on the older side of the parks I've visited, it is clear they have made a bunch of improvements to modernize it and have created a fun gameday atmosphere.  Along with what I experienced the night before in South Bend, it is easy to see why the Midwest League was moved up a level in this decade's minor league reshuffling.

West Michigan has one of the more prospect rich rosters in the lower levels.  Hitters Max Clark and Kevin McGonigle are both Top 15 prospects according to MLB.com.  Or at least they *were* prospect rich before those guys were promoted to AA soon after this trip.  Rehabbing Tigers reliever Alex Lange started for West Michigan.  He gave up a run on two hits in his one inning of work.  The Whitecaps immediately got him off the hook in the bottom of the first though on a RBI single by Josue Briceno, another Tigers prospect of note who has since been promoted to Erie.  That followed a steal of second base by leadoff hitter Seth Stephenson.  That was the first of four steals off the Wisconsin pitcher/catcher battery of Ryan Birchard and Blayberg Diaz, leading me to believe their scouting report was to run at will against those two.  The Whitecaps had five total steals in the game.  West Michigan picked up single runs in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings as well.  The run in the fifth was set up by singles from McGonigle and Clark to start the inning.  McGonigle scored on a sacrifice fly by Briceno.  Meanwhile, the Timber Rattlers couldn't cross home plate after Lange departed the game.  Joe Miller followed Lange and pitched a bulk of the game for the Whitecaps.  The southpaw was very impressive.  He went six innings without allowing a run, surrendered just three hits and struck out eight Timber Rattlers.  The only time Wisconsin really even threatened him was in his last inning of work when he gave up a leadoff, wind aided triple to Kay-Lan Nicasia.  But he was not able to advance any further as Miller got two infield fly outs and a strikeout.  Carlos Lequerica got the ninth on the mound for West Michigan and successfully closed things out for a save and a 4-1 Whitecaps win.

This was a very fun night in the Grand Rapids neighbor of Comstock Park.  While it was a very hot evening at the ballpark, it was nothing like what I was about to experience the following afternoon in Central Michigan as a rare mid-June heatwave continued.

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Next ballpark: Dow Diamond in Midland, MI

Four Winds Field - South Bend Cubs

Lake County Captains (CLE) @ South Bend Cubs (CHC)

June 20, 2025

Cubs 5, Captains 4 (10 inn)

W: Brayden Risedorph
L: Kyle Scott

HR: Jefferson Rojas (SB)

Attendance: 6,528
Time of Game: 3 hours, 1 minute

Stadium Facts

Location: South Bend, IN
Opened: 1988
Capacity: 5,000
Level: High A
League: Midwest

On this Friday morning and afternoon, I drove pretty much the entire length of the state of Indiana from just South of its border in Louisville to the very northern part of the state, South Bend.  No local exploration was necessary at this stop because there are very few cities that I am more familiar with than South Bend.  There is also no minor league ballpark that I have visited more frequently than what is now called Four Winds Field, home of the South Bend Cubs.  The summer between my junior and senior years at Notre Dame, I spent most of the summer in South Bend.  Back in those days, the South Bend Silver Hawks played at this same park, which was then called Coveleski Stadium.  Every Monday home game was $1 night:  $1 tickets, hot dogs, beers and sodas.  I think I attended virtually every Monday home game that summer.  That was back when minor league teams actually played on Mondays.  I would guess I've been to at least a dozen games in this ballpark.  That said, prior to this trip, my last visit was a week before I graduated from college.  So we're talking well over two decades ago.

I barely recognized the place.  Opened in 1988, this is the oldest park I've been to so far this year.  In the years soon following the new affiliation with the Cubs (2015), major renovations were made to the stadium and the neighborhood around it.  There are now residential buildings just beyond the outfield in both left and center that definitely weren't there the last time I visited.  The left field one has rooftop seating, giving it some Wrigley Field flavor.  There are also a bunch of newer picnic and party areas down the third base line and in left field.  Lawn seating remains in other parts of the outfield and down the first base line.  Currently, all of the seating areas within the regular confines of the park are on the field level.  But that is about to change.  Construction is in progress to add a second level above the concourse.  This park was a little bit ahead of its time having suites (from what I read, it was the first in the minor leagues to have them) and a concourse above the main seating area from which you can view the field.  On this particular night, that concourse was jam packed with people.  I'm curious if the addition of more seats on a second level will make this better or worse.  This game had an announced attendance well over the listed capacity, which presumably doesn't take into account lawn seating.  As I will continue to write about in upcoming Midwest League recaps, I'm starting to understand why this league was promoted to High A in the most recent minor league reorg.  Most of these teams have nice stadiums with great local community support.

This was probably the most entertaining game I saw on this Midwest trip.  It was a bit difficult for me to pick a side to root for considering these are affiliates of my two least favorite MLB teams.  The first inning featured leadoff extra base hits in both halves.  Lake County's Christian Knapczyk doubled to right on the first pitch of the game, but was then erased on a poor base running decision.  It was the start of an eventful night for Knapczyk who reached base four times, twice by way of being hit by pitches.  Cubs leadoff hitter Jefferson Rojas started the bottom of the first with a home run to left off of Captains pitcher Yorman Gomez to give South Bend an early 1-0 lead.  It was close to the only blemish of a pretty dominant performance by Gomez.  He had seven strikeouts in the first three innings and a total of nine with no walks in his five innings of work.  Lake County got on the board in the fourth inning, during which they sent all nine men to the plate despite starting the inning with two consecutive outs.  What followed was a bloop double that the center fielder got a poor read on, an RBI triple by Jonah Advincula, a single, a double, Knapczyk's second time being hit by a pitch, and then a bases loaded walk taken by Jaison Chourio, younger brother of the Brewers' Jackson Chourio.  Apparently walking has been Jaison's calling card this season because he has a very good on base percentage despite a disappointing batting average.  This walk gave the Captains a 3-1 lead.  The Cubs did some of their own two out nobody on damage in the sixth.  Following a pair of hits and a walk, Drew Bowser singled to knock in two and tie the game at three.  South Bend retook the lead two innings later on a bizarre play.  With the bases loaded and one out, a Rojas grounder to third took the third baseman to the bag where he got the force, but then threw wildly to first in an attempt to end the inning.  The ball got away into the bullpen area on the first base side where the right fielder picked it up and threw home to get an out at the plate on a questionable call by the home plate umpire.  In the top of the ninth with the Captains down to their last strike, Jacob Cozart doubled to the gap in left center to score Knapczyk and tie the game at four, which ultimately led to extra innings.  In the top of the tenth, Brayden Risedorph struck out the side, stranding the free runner at second.  In the bottom half, with runners on first and second and one out, the Cubs pulled off a double steal to put the winning run 90 feet away.  An intentional walk loaded the bases.  For some reason, #8 hitter Bowser decided to swing on 3-0, one ball away from ending the game, and fouled it off.  But he then redeemed himself for that questionable decision by singling up the middle for an extra inning, walk-off victory for the Cubs.

After this exciting Midwest League game in South Bend, it was up to Michigan for three more Midwest League games over the weekend and into the following week.  Despite traveling to the North, temperatures continued to rise for what was a rather steamy weekend.

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Next ballpark: LMCU Ballpark in Comstock Park, MI