One of the unique aspects about the game of baseball, and to an extent hockey, is that the professional aspect of the sport actually has many levels. In football, either you play for the NFL, or you play for some tiny wannabe league. In basketball, it is the NBA, the D-League, or nothing. Only in baseball, where you have Single-A, Double-A, Triple-A, and the majors themselves, do you have these different levels of teams. Of course, it is the goal of every player to make it up to the bigs, and to never look back.
Not only are there four different levels of baseball, they are all interconnected. With all of the levels being affiliated, all members of the 'farm' teams (A, AA, AAA) are actually owned by a major league team. In Columbus' case, all of the Clippers are actually owned by the Cleveland Indians. This means that the Indians can call players up, send them down, and do as they wish to them. This also means that only the Indians can trade players between teams. While this is useful, as it expands both the player pool and the fan base, it does have its consequences.
Now, this facet of the game is very important for Columbus, as Cleveland likes to trade people like crazy. For starters, this caused Columbus to gain three new players early in the week, while losing two that they had. Interestingly enough, these players were actually in the other dugout the night before, and had to face their previous team just one night later. Then the Indians made another trade on Thursday, which caused the Clippers to lose a few more people. Basically, Cleveland's trades resulted in the Clippers losing not only 5 players, but losing some of their best starters. This is the curse of minor league baseball, and something all teams have to deal with.
Without their best players, the Clippers were left with nothing to hold onto. This was clear from the very get-go, as the Clippers could not stop the Gwinnett Braves for even a minute. In the first inning, pitcher Zach Jackson allowed eight hits, while getting no strike outs. He also managed to allow seven runs, one of which was a home run. In the second, he didn't fair much better, as he allowed three hits, three runs, and another homer – which, by the way, was sent soaring by Alvin Colina, just like the first one.
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