Sioux City Explorers infielder John Nogowski and Kane County Cougars starter Greg Mahle won the American Association’s Rawlings batter and pitcher of the month for July, the league announced Thursday.
Nogowski led the league in hitting in July by a good margin, going 37-for-83 at the plate (.446) in 24 games. He hit seven doubles, four home runs and drove in 15 runs with a whopping 1.256 OPS.
Nogowski not only had a 12-game hit streak at one point during July, he also had a streak of eight games in a row with at least two hits. In total, he had 14 multi-hit games in the month of July.
The former major leaguer with the St. Louis Cardinals, Toronto Blue Jays and Pittsburgh Pirates (2020-2021) is now leading the league in batting average (.348) and is 7th in total hits with 85 on the season.
A first-time award winner on the pitching side this season, Greg Mahle had quite the month on the mound.
Mahle made five starts in the month of July and went a perfect 5-0 (to improve to a perfect 7-0 on the season). He went at least five innings in each of those starts, allowing more than one earned run just once.
The left-hander also racked up the strikeouts, picking up 27 of them across his five starts. Arguably his best start of the month came on July 15th when he went six innings in Fargo against the RedHawks allowing just one run while striking out eight.
The left-hander spent some time in the majors with the Los Angeles Angels back in 2016 but prior to this season had not played professional baseball since 2021 in the Mexican league.
Rawlings is the official baseball of the American Association.
