FORBES
HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY – Three Hickory Crawdads are leaving the club and headed to the Down East Wood Ducks.
The Texas Rangers, the Crawdads’ parent club, on Wednesday promoted infielders Ti’Quan Forbes and Yeyson Yrizarri and catcher-first baseman Carlos Garay to their Class A Advanced team in Kinston.
Forbes and Yrizarri began playing in Hickory in 2016, and Garay joined the Crawdads earlier this season after having played 19 games for the Wood Ducks (.290, no HRs, 3 RBIs).
Hickory’s roster will now include infielder Charles LeBlanc and catcher Yoehl Pozo, who have been playing in Spokane, Wash., and infielder Brallan Perez returns to the Crawdads from the Wood Ducks (he played eight games earlier this season for Hickory).
LeBlanc played 16 games for the Spokane Indians (.183, 1 HR, 4 RBIs) and Pozo played 13 games for them (.333, 21 HR, 10 RBIs), while Perez played 43 games for the Wood Ducks (.285, 1 HR, 7 RBIs).
GARAY
Hickory is at home for seven straight games, facing Kannapolis and then playing a four-game series against Delmarva (Md.) at L. P. Frans Stadium.
Forbes, 20, exits as the Crawdads’ leader in games played (80), and he’s third in at-bats (305). He began the season by hitting a home run in each of the first three games and hit .300 or better for the month of April.
He has a team-high eight home runs and is second in hits (73), RBIs (34), runs (36) and total bases (111).
Forbes was a second round draft pick in 2014. He played third base and first base and had a consecutive on-base streak of 19 games at one point this season.
Garay, 22, joined the Crawdads on May 20 and has since hit .362, which leads the team, and his batting average would rank No. 2 in the South Atlantic League (SAL) if he had enough plate appearances to qualify.
YRIZARRI
Over the last 10 games, Garay has hit .409 with 18 hits, a home run and 11 RBIs. He’s produced 17 multi-hit games and had a hit in 33 of the 41 games he played for Hickory.
Yrizarri, 20, hit .264 with five home runs, a team-best 17 doubles, five home runs and 30 RBIs for Hickory this season. Rated the Rangers’ 17th-best prospect by MLB.com, he was riding a seven-game hit streak in which he had two home runs and nine RBIs. He played shortstop and second base with a .976 fielding percentage.
The Wood Ducks play in the Carolina League, and they are at Winston-Salem for games on Wednesday and Thursday night (both available on Milb.TV).
Kinston was 7-5 in the Southern Division — trailing the Buies Creek Astros by 1 ½ games and the second-place Carolina Mudcats by a half-game — through Tuesday.
The Wood Ducks, in their first season, went 24-45 in the first half of the season and finished fourth in their division.