The Greenville Drive, the High-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, were crowned 2023 South Atlantic League champions on Tuesday night.
Playing in front of a crowd of 4,393 on a warm evening at Fluor Field, the Drive defeated the Hudson Valley Renegades (Yankees’ High-A affiliate) by a final score of 7-3 to sweep the best-of-three series and take home their first SAL title since 2017.
Greenville carried with it a 1-0 series lead heading into Tuesday’s contest after getting six scoreless innings from top pitching prospect Luis Perales and blanking Hudson Valley, 2-0, in Game 1 at Heritage Financial Park in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. on Sunday.
Dalton Rogers got the start for the Drive in Game 2. The 22-year-old left-hander went the first three innings, allowing one run on two hits, two walks, and five strikeouts. He took a shutout bid into the top of the third before giving up a two-out RBI single to Jesus Rodriguez to put the Renegades up, 1-0.
Moments after Rogers’ night came to a close, though, the Greenville bats quickly retaliated while going up against Hudson Valley starter (and Northeastern product) Cam Schlittler. Gilberto Jimenez doubled to lead off the bottom of the third and then moved up to third base on a Nick Decker single.
With no outs and runners on the corners, Eddinson Paulino delivered with a go-ahead, two-run double down the right field line to drive in both Jimenez and Decker and give the Drive a 2-1 advantage. That lead did not last long, however, as Renegades first baseman Rafael Flores led off the top of the fourth by cranking a game-tying solo home run off newly-inserted reliever Zach Penrod.
Despite the rude greeting, Penrod — who posted a 2.18 ERA in four regular season starts for Greenville — settled in nicely. The 26-year-old southpaw retired 15 of the next 16 batters he faced after giving up the homer and watched his side re-take the lead in the process of doing so.
Ronald Rosario, Penrod’s battery mate, crushed a 424-foot, go-ahead solo blast to kick off the latter half of the sixth. An inning later, Tyler Miller provided some additional insurance with a sharply-hit RBI single through the middle of the infield. Kristian Campbell then broke it open by demolishing a three-run home run to deep center field off Matt Keating, giving the Drive a commanding 7-2 edge.
Penrod put up another zero in the eighth before allowing the first two batters he faced in the ninth to reach base on a double and a walk. That prompted Greenville manager Iggy Suarez to pull Penrod and bring in closer Felix Cepeda, who emerged as a steady presence in the back end of the bullpen for the Drive after earning a promotion to Low-A Salem in mid-July.
Cepeda recorded the first two outs of the inning before giving up an infield single on a pop-up he could not catch cleanly. A wild pitch allowed one of the runners Cepeda inherited to score from third, but the hard-throwing righty did not falter and instead punched out Cole Gabrielson on five pitches to end it.
With the victory, the Drive are now two-time South Atlantic League champions (2017, 2023). Campbell, who went 3-for-6 (.500) with one home run and four RBIs in two games, should probably be considered the MVP of this series. Penrod, meanwhile, earned the winning decision on Tuesday after striking out seven over five solid innings of relief and inducing a game-high 19 whiffs.
The Drive, who have been affiliated with the Red Sox since 2005, punched their ticket to this year’s SAL playoffs by going 36-30 and clinching a first-half division title. Despite struggling to a 27-39 record in the second half, Greenville swept the Hickory Crawdads (Rangers’ High-A affiliate) in last week’s division series and wound up marching to a perfect 4-0 in the postseason.
From start to finish, Greenville received contributions from several of Boston’s top prospects this season. Nathan Hickey, Blaze Jordan, Chase Meidroth, Marcelo Mayer, Wikelman Gonzalez, Angel Bastardo, Isaac Coffey, Grant Gambrell, Christopher Troye, and Alex Hoppe were among the talented minor-leaguers who broke camp with the Drive in the spring but earned promotions to Double-A Portland at different points throughout the year.
Mikey Romero, Cutter Coffey, and Roman Anthony (the Red Sox’ first three selections in the 2022 draft) all started in Salem this season before making the jump to Greenville. Anthony, of course, performed so well with the Drive that he was promoted to Portland earlier this month. The same can be said for catcher Kyle Teel, who — like Campbell — was drafted by Boston this summer.
Other notable prospects who played for Greenville this year include Cepeda, Perales, Rogers, Yordanny Monegro, Noah Song, Brock Bell, Reidis Sena, Brainer Bonaci, and Allan Castro.
(Picture courtesy of the Greenville Drive)
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