Lake Country DockHounds outfielder Imanol Vargas and Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks starter Jake Dykhoff won the American Association’s Carbliss batter and pitcher of the week awards for the week ending June 29, the league announced Monday.
Vargas led the league in hitting this week and led the DockHounds to a humongous five wins on the road in Cleburne. Of his nine hits (.500 average), four were home runs and four were doubles.
Vargas also walked four times and scored nine runs while driving in 10 runs. In one of the rare low-scoring battles of their series down south, he drove in three of four runs for Lake Country in a 4-0 win on Friday with two home runs.
Vargas is a newcomer to the league after spending parts of six seasons in the Dodgers’ organization and one each in the Angels’ and Pirates’ systems in the past two years.
On the pitching side, Dykhoff had a big week for the RedHawks, winning games as both as a starter and reliever.
On Monday, he came in relief in the third inning and pitched 5.2 innings allowing two runs in a tight 7-6 win over Milwaukee. Then on Saturday he shined, throwing a complete game, two-hit shutout against Lincoln with 12 strikeouts in a 5-0 win.
It was a heck of a first start of the season for Dykhoff, who previously made 18 bullpen appearances with an ERA of 2.63, which is now down to 1.91 on the season.
This is year three for Dykhoff after playing his college ball not too far away at Minnesota-Crookston. He was an outstanding arm in the pen a year ago, making 42 appearances with a 2.21 ERA across 57 total innings.
Carbliss is the founding partner of the American Association.
