Cole Winn debuts, Joe Palumbo pitches

The Texas Rangers used their first round draft pick in 2018 — the #15 pick overall — on high school righthanded pitcher Cole Winn, who didn’t pitch in official game action after signing, as the Rangers put him and several other prep pitchers in a “de-load” program last summer.

Winn made his professional debut tonight for the Hickory Crawdads, going two shutout innings before allowing a pair of runs in the third. His final line was 3 IP, 3 hits, 2 runs, 2 Ks, 2 walks, 2 wild pitches. A couple of hitters had noteworthy outings as well for Hickory...Sherten Apostel continues to show signs of shrugging off his slow start, logging a pair of doubles, while Pedro Gonzalez had a double and a triple, raising his OPS on the season to 784.

Joe Palumbo threw 85 pitches over 5 innings for Frisco tonight, allowing single runs in each of the first three frames, though with only one of those runs being earned. He allowed 5 hits, walked 1, hit 1, committed a balk and struck out 6. Michael De Leon also had a couple more hits.

Jason Bahr had a very similar line to Palumbo while pitching for Down East, allowing 3 runs, 1 earned, in 5 IP, on 4 hits, a walk, an HBP, and a wild pitch, striking out 6. Bahr now has a 2.04 ERA on the year. There was also a Michael Matuella sighting — he walked 2 and allowed a hit in 1.1 scoreless IP.