The St. Louis Cardinals announced today their selections for Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Month for August, with Memphis Redbirds (AAA) outfielder Adolis Garcia and Memphis right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon taking the honors.
García, 26, clubbed seven of his team-leading 32 home runs in August, while batting .342 (25-for-73) with 24 runs scored and 19 RBI in 24 games. The right-handed hitting Garcia finished the 2019 season with a .253 batting mark, ranked 8th in the Pacific Coast League in home runs, 10th in RBI (96) and 8th in runs scored (96). García, a Cuba native, who was signed by the Cardinals as an international free-agent in February of 2017, led the league in games played with 132. His 32 round-trippers tied Rick Ankiel (2007) for the 4th most in Memphis franchise single-season history.
Ponce de Leon, 27, fashioned a perfect 4-0 mark with a 0.93 ERA across his five starts during the month of August, striking out 39 in his 29.0 innings pitched. Ponce de Leon had a pair of 7.0 inning scoreless starts in August and fanned 11 in a 15-0 win at Sacramento on August 9.
Ponce de Leon made a total of 16 starts for Memphis in 2019, going 8-4 with a 2.88 ERA. A 9th round draft selection by the Cardinals in 2014, Ponce de Leon has also appeared in 11 games (8 starts) for St. Louis this season (1-2, 4.03 ERA).
García and Ponce de Leon helped fuel an impressive turn around by Memphis over their season’s final six weeks, as the Redbirds went 31-12 (.721 win pct.) following a loss on July 17 that had left them with a 38-59 mark. The back-to-back (2017-18) Pacific Coast League Champions went into their final series of the season with a chance to advance to the postseason, before finishing the year at 69-71 and in 2nd place in the PCL American Northern Division.
