Cardinals prospect Gordon Graceffo K’s eight, allows one run in seven frames: Minor League Report (2024)

Coming off a seven-inning complete game during which he allowed one run in game one of a split doubleheader, Cardinals prospect Gordon Graceffo produced nearly identical results on Tuesday night for Class AAA Memphis.

The hard-throwing righty kept Durham hitters to one run on five hits and struck out eight batters across seven inning in a 1-0 road loss. He did not walk a batter and reached a maximum velocity of 97.2 mph with his fastball while producing 18 swings-and-misses with his five-pitch arsenal, per Statcast. Seven of the whiffs Graceffo generated came on his fastball, and five were on his slider, which had a 45% whiff rate.

Graceffo began his start by striking out four of the first six batters he faced and ended it by striking out three of the last six he faced. The only run allowed by the 24-year-old came on a one-out single in the fifth from Durham’s Tristan Peters that drove in Rene Pinto after Pinto doubled to begin the frame.

On a night when he threw 93 pitches, Graceffo’s fastball velocity ranged in the mid-to-low 90s over his last two innings of work and reached as high as 95.6 mph once he neared the 80-pitch mark in the sixth. The quality start was the 24-year-old’s third of the year — all of which have come across his last six starts. Tuesday’s start lowered Graceffo’s to 3.88 over 48 2/3 innings.

Here are other notable performances across the Cardinals minor leagues:

Catcher Leonardo Bernal, Class High-A Peoria: Bernal reached base safely with a hit for the fourth consecutive game as he went two-for-four with an RBI double in Peoria’s 8-6 loss to Cedar Rapids. The double from the switch-hitting catcher came as a lefty off of a righty. He entered Tuesday with a .200 average and five extra-base hits in 85 at-bats vs. right-handers. The two-hit game improves Bernal to a .248 average and a .692 OPS in 33 games in High-A. He is batting .290 over his last 19 games. That stretch includes four doubles, two home runs, and 10 RBIs.

Infielder Cesar Prieto, Class AAA Memphis: One of the top-producing hitters in the International League, Prieto continued to find consistency with a two-for-four game that included his 11th double of the season. Prieto, 25, is batting .344 with a .380 on-base percentage and a .561 slugging percentage in 40 games with Memphis. He ended Tuesday ranked fifth in batting average and with the third-lowest strikeout percentage (10.2%) among qualified International League hitters. He’s reached base safely with a hit in 13 of the 16 games he’s played in during May.

Outfielder Joshua Baez, Class High-A Peoria: With Peoria trailing by three runs in the bottom of the sixth, the 20-year-old showed his power tool with a three-run home run that helped Peoria erase its deficit to Cedar Rapids before losing in extra innings. Baez’s homer was his third of the season and first since April 25. The former second-round pick from the 2021 draft is batting .231 with a .645 OPS in 32 games with Peoria. He’s struck out 43 times in 117 plate appearances.

Left-hander Pete Hansen, Class High-A Peoria: The former third-round pick from the 2022 draft class allowed five runs over 5 1/3 innings in his start for the Chiefs. He struck out five batters and walked one on 91 pitches (59 strikes). Four of the five runs surrendered by Hansen came in the fourth inning. The 23-year-old walked a batter and hit another with a pitch with one out in the frame. Hansen followed the walk and hit batter by allowing two singles and two doubles to the next four hitters he faced which put Peoria in a 4-0 deficit. After retiring nine of the 10 batters he faced from the third inning through the fifth, Hansen induced a groundout to begin the sixth and had his outing end after giving up a one-out single. The lefty is 0-3 with a 4.93 ERA over eight starts (42 innings).