This Is the Double Dip Pitcher's Issue. Start With Gage Wood.

Gage Wood has a losing record. Zero wins, three losses, a 3.51 ERA across two levels. On paper that is not a Lead. But Wood has thrown exactly zero High-A innings in his life, and the Phillies pushed him from Single-A Clearwater straight to Double-A Reading on May 18. Then he beat the level anyway.

In nine Double-A starts, Wood has struck out 48 batters against 9 walks in 32 and two-thirds innings. That is roughly a 5-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio at a level that is supposed to expose exactly the guy who was famous in college. His ERA at Reading sits at 3.58, and the record does not move the way the stuff says it should, because Reading has not scored for him. Opponents are hitting .203 off him this season.

July has been the cleanest version yet. Two starts, zero walks, thirteen strikeouts, a 2.57 ERA. On July 19 against Altoona he struck out nine in four innings. The Phillies pulled him off that same slate to start for the National League in the Futures Game, less than three months after he was in Single-A.

The background matters here too. Wood threw a nine-inning no-hitter against Murray State in the 2025 College World Series and struck out nineteen, an Arkansas and CWS record for a nine-inning game. That was a month before Philadelphia drafted him 26th overall. He is twenty-two years old and has been in pro ball for a year.

The Phillies are not trying to hide him at Double-A. They are trying to see how fast he breaks it. So far the answer is: fast.

The Rising Star

Braylon Doughty, RHP, Akron RubberDucks (Double-A, Guardians)

Braylon Doughty's Double-A debut lasted 2.1 innings and cost him 8 runs on 10 hits. That is not usually how a Rising Star write-up starts. But look at what happened next. In his following three starts for Akron, Doughty has thrown two shutouts, allowing zero earned runs in 11 innings with 14 strikeouts. His most recent outing, five innings, two hits, zero runs, eight strikeouts, was exactly the version of him that dominated High-A Lake County in June: a 1.64 ERA over four starts, 24 strikeouts against just two walks. The Guardians took him 36th overall in 2024 for $2.5 million out of a Temecula high school, and he is only 20 years old, younger than most of the hitters he is now facing at Double-A. The stuff, a fastball that touches 97 with two breaking balls that spin over 3,000 rpm, was never the question. One bad night in an otherwise clean transition is not either.

Under the Radar

Tony Rossi, RHP, Somerset Patriots (Double-A, Yankees)

Tony Rossi signed with the Yankees for $10,000 as a non-drafted free agent in 2024. Two years and three levels later, he's a top AA reliever. The 27-year-old right-hander has a 2.03 ERA and 46 strikeouts in 31 innings this season, and in July alone he's allowed two runs across six-plus innings with nine strikeouts. He jumped from High-A Hudson Valley to Double-A Somerset in June and hasn't missed a beat, landing on the Prospect Team of the Week twice since. His fastball touches 98 with plenty of extension, and his walk rate keeps shrinking as the innings pile up. Yankees No. 30 prospect undersells what this arm looks like right now. Numbers like his don't usually come from a guy three colleges and a Tommy John surgery into his path to pro ball.

Worth Watching

Josh Hartle, LHP, Akron RubberDucks (Double-A, Guardians)

Josh Hartle's season line is nothing special: a 4.30 ERA over 17 starts for Double-A Akron, up against a 4.96 ERA in the second half. This is not that write-up. This is about July 17 against Binghamton: five innings, one hit, zero runs, one walk, six strikeouts, three of them looking. Half his outs came on ground balls, and the two batters who reached against him were both erased on double plays. That is not swing-and-miss dominance. That is a 6-foot-6 lefty spotting his fastball and burying secondaries in exactly the way the scouting reports described before the Pirates drafted him in 2024. Cleveland acquired him in the Spencer Horwitz trade last summer. He is 23, old for the level, and has not put together a real hot streak this season. But one start like that is worth filing away. The command was always the question. For one night, it wasn't.

Anthony Eyanson has a 1.56 ERA in nine Double-A starts. Zoom out further and it gets sillier: 1.19 ERA across two levels, 79 strikeouts against 21 walks in 60.2 innings, a 0.82 WHIP. The 21-year-old, the Red Sox's No. 2 prospect and MLB Pipeline's No. 54 overall, has barely slowed down since a $1.75 million above-slot bonus turned him pro last July.

June was the one blemish, not on the ERA, which stayed at 0.52, but on the command: 10 walks against 14 strikeouts in 17.1 innings, the shape of a pitcher working through something. July erased the question fast. Two starts, 1.80 ERA, 15 strikeouts, only 2 walks. His last outing against Somerset was his best of the season: five innings, one hit, one walk, eight strikeouts. Three days before that he entered the Futures Game in the fourth inning and got the win for the American League, stranding two inherited runners.

The one real flaw left is his walk rate against left-handed hitters, 17 in 27.1 innings compared to just 4 in 33.1 against righties. That is what a Triple-A staff will test first. But a fastball that has climbed from 92-94 in college to 95-96, touching 100, in pro ball, paired with a slider that misses bats against everyone, does not sit in Double-A for long once the command catches up on both sides.

He has been at Portland since May 5. Worcester before the end of the season looks like a good bet.

Biloxi already has a playoff spot locked. The real Southern League South race is for the other one, and Columbus is winning it almost by default.

Biloxi clinched the South's first half June 21 at 35-30, a spot it cannot lose. The roster that earned it is still intact: Andrew Fischer, our Issue 7 Lead, Jaron DeBerry, our Issue 3 Under the Radar, and Jesús Made, the sport's presumptive No. 1 overall prospect, all three on the same active roster.

Columbus sits tied with Biloxi atop the second half at 13-8. If Biloxi also wins the second half, the rule kicks in: the runner-up gets the spot instead, and right now that is Columbus. It does not need to beat Biloxi. It needs to hold off Pensacola, 2.5 back, where Fenwick Trimble, our Issue 6 Under the Radar, still patrols the outfield. Columbus is doing this without the prospects who opened the season there, most of whom are gone to the majors or other organizations since June. A seven-inning, one-run start from Cedric De Grandpre and a Carson Taylor homer in the same game carried its most recent series instead.

The North is running the same script. Knoxville clinched its own first half at a league-best 38-30 and leads the second half too, one game ahead of Rocket City. The two of them play six straight starting tomorrow. However that series goes decides whether Rocket City has to catch Knoxville outright, or just has to stay ahead of the field behind it.

Double Dip is a Below the Show publication. Published every Tuesday. Forward this to a friend who follows prospects closely.

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