Staff report
Cobb Hightower (East Rowan) hit his first homer for the Delmarva Shorebirds on Thursday in a Carolina League game with Lynchburg.
Hightower, a third-round pick by San Diego in 2024, also hit one homer with Lake Elsinore before he was traded to the Shorebirds, a Baltimore farm club.
He’s batting .237 for the season and has scored 37 runs.
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Myrtle Beach’s Kane Kepley (South Rowan, UNC) has run into the first adversity of his pro career, as he went through an 0-for-18 stretch recently in the Carolina League.
A second-round pick by the Chicago Cubs in July, Kepley’s batting average is down to .286, but his OBP is still a lofty .463. He has two homers, 26 runs and 15 steals in 26 pro games.
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Vance Honeycutt’s season has been surreal. The former Salisbury and UNC star hasn’t been able to turn things around. The positives for him are 32 steals (38 attempts) and 55 walks, but he’s batting .164 for Abderdeen in High-A ball with 172 strikeouts.
The Baltimore Orioles will try to fix whatever has gone wrong in the off season. Honeycutt has impressive speed, defensive skills and power and was a first-round pick in 2024.
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Austin Love (West Rowan, UNC) has worn down a little bit down the stretch, but he still has had a tremendous comeback season from Tommy John surgery that cost him almost two full seasons.
He was a third-round pick by the Cardinals in 2021.
Love is 6-1 with two saves and a 2.63 ERA in Double-A ball. He’s struck out 59 as a short reliever for Springfield and has a reasonable chance to make it to St. Louis at some point in 2026.
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The official pro debuts for CJ Gray (A.L. Brown) and Coy James (Davie) probably won’t happen until 2026, but James launched a homer in a complex league game this week. Gray is an Angel, while James is a National. They were highly regarded draft picks out of high school in July, with both landing large bonuses (much higher than the slot value for their draft position) to bypass college scholarships.
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Owen White (Carson) is still on the 15-day IL. The White Sox placed him on the IL with a hip impingement.
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Jake Hunter (East Rowan, ECU) has signed a free agent deal with the Minnesota Twins, but he may not pitch for a while. He’s thrown a lot this year between college and the MLB Draft League, where he was dominating when the Twins signed him.
