The 2024 season has been one to remember in Columbia. Here’s some of our favorite moments and storylines on the field from this year, so far. Wrapping Up 2024 with a Bang By Patrick DeMarre APRIL Hunter Patteson started the season off with a bang and claimed the first Carolina League Pitcher of the Week Award of 2024, tossing nine innings of scoreless ball across two appearances. The southpaw finished off a 4-1 win against Augusta by retiring all 12 batters he faced out of the bullpen and earned the save. A few days later, the lefty started a game against Myrtle Beach by retiring the first eight hitters he stood against, fanning 20 straight hitters in total. Patteson finished the month of April with a 1.62 ERA in 16.2 innings across four appearances and three starts. He held opposing hitters to a .125 batting average in the season’s opening month. MAY On the first of May, Felix Arronde spun a gem on the mound. In a 2-1 loss against Carolina, the Cuban hurler recorded the lone double-digit strikeout game of the season by a Fireflies starter. Arronde allowed one run on one hit and two walks in six innings of work. The righty had a no-hitter going until he allowed a single in the bottom of the sixth inning. Derlin Figueroa swung a hot bat in the season’s second month. The lefty slugger had the longest hit-streak of the 2024 campaign by a Fireflies player, hitting in 13-straight contests between May 12 and May 26. In that span, Figueroa collected three homers, nine RBI and had a .408 batting average. This was one of the most dominant stretches by a Columbia hitter all season. Austin Charles and Blake Mitchell each had multi-home run games in May, the only multi- homer games by Fireflies hitters in 2024. Charles accomplished the feat in a 4-2 win against Charleston May 17, swatting two solo shots to lead the Fireflies to victory. Mitchell’s double- dinger night occurred May 30 in a 14-5 loss to Kannapolis. The lefty’s two solo homers bookended a 5 HR, 17 RBI statline in May with a .459 slugging percentage. Figueroa, Charles, Mitchell and Erick Pena have all hit 10 or more home runs this season. No other team in the Carolina League has more than two hitters with double-digit homers. Only two other Single-A franchises have four or more hitters with 10+ homers in 2024, the Braedenton Marauders of the Florida State League and the Modesto Nuts of the California League. JUNE As the temperatures across Carolina League ballparks rose in June, the Fireflies became scorching hot on the field. June was the winningest month of the season for Columbia, who went 17-10 in the final full month of the first half. June 6, Hunter Patteson set the team-high in innings pitched in a single outing in 2024. The lefty nearly went the full distance against Fayetteville, going eight strong with five strikeouts and just three hits allowed. Patteson retired the last 18 hitters he faced to help secure a 1-0 win–that stretch is the most-consecutive hitters retired by a Fireflies pitcher in team history. It was his last appearance for Columbia before being promoted to Quad Cities June 10. Emmanuel Reyes picked up where Patteson left off with a different, but also impressive performance against Fayetteville that week. June 9, the righty took the mound against the Woodpeckers and threw just 35 pitches in five scoreless innings. Reyes allowed two hits and struck out two while working extremely efficiently. The young Dominican starter recorded 29 strikes on those 35 pitches and faced 17 hitters in total. Dionmy Salon began the second-longest hit streak by a member of the 2024 Fireflies this month. Columbia’s reserve catcher mixed in 11 appearances over six weeks, recording at least one hit each time he was penciled into the lineup. Hitting in double-digit games consecutively is not easy to begin with, but doing so despite not seeing the field consistently is even more difficult. Salon hit for a .429 average during the 11-game stretch, the highest batting average of any hit streak recorded by a Columbia hitter in 2024. The
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