Two St. Louis affiliates play for championships on Tuesday night, an hour apart.

In Springfield, a 19-year-old from Villa de Cura, Venezuela gets the ball with a Texas League title on the line. In Memphis, the International League final begins.

Springfield vs. Amarillo

Texas League Championship Series, Game 2
Tuesday, Sept. 22 — 6:35 p.m. CT / 7:35 p.m. ET
Route 66 Stadium, Springfield, Mo. Gates at 5:35.

Watch it free. Minor League Baseball games stream at no cost on Bally Sports Live — no cable login, no credit card. Use the app or the website and find the game on the schedule.

Or through MiLB.TV — $9.99, in the MLB app or the MiLB app. It's also bundled free with any MLB.TV subscription, so if you already have one, sign in with those credentials.

Radio, also free: Classic Rock 106.7 in Springfield and streaming at springfieldcardinals.com. Amarillo's call is on NewsTalk 940 AM and the Sod Poodles' site.

Probables: RHP Yhoiker Fajardo for Springfield, RHP Brian Curley for Amarillo.

Springfield leads the best-of-three 1-0. A win ends it.

Two players who weren't supposed to be here

Yhoiker Fajardo is 19, born in Villa de Cura, Venezuela, and he starts a championship game tonight. He came to St. Louis last December in the four-player trade that sent Willson Contreras to Boston — Fajardo, Hunter Dobbins and Blake Aita for Contreras and cash.

Jesús Báez is the Dominican infielder hitting in front of Josiah Ragsdale. The Mets signed him and traded him to St. Louis in July 2025 for Ryan Helsley.

Báez hit 39 home runs in the regular season — 14 at High-A Peoria, 25 after the promotion to Springfield, where he slashed .316/.354/.679. That matched Moisés Gómez in 2022 for the most by a Cardinals minor leaguer in a single season since 1949.

Then he hit a walk-off home run against Tulsa in the division final to make it 41.

Two players acquired for veterans the Cardinals traded away, playing for a championship eighteen months later.

Game 1

Springfield won 7-2 at Hodgetown on Sunday.

Tai Peete went 5-for-5 leading off, with a home run, a double and four RBIs. He's 6-for-6 with two homers and six RBIs over his last six at-bats.

Tanner Franklin threw a career-high 6⅓ innings in his first playoff start — two runs, seven hits, nine strikeouts, no walks.

Won-Bin Cho, the South Korean outfielder, drove in the first two runs. Springfield drew nine walks and is 3-0 this postseason.

Who else is on this roster

Four of St. Louis's top thirteen prospects.

Rainiel Rodríguez is the organization's No. 1 — a 19-year-old catcher. Liam Doyle is No. 2, a 22-year-old left-hander. Both were named St. Louis's Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Month for August. Franklin is No. 6, Fajardo No. 13, Báez No. 15.

This is also where Leo Bernal and Hancel Rincón came from. Both reached the majors this month — Bernal, the Panamanian catcher who played in the World Baseball Classic in March, drove in two in his first big league at-bat at Dodger Stadium.

Amarillo

The Sod Poodles are Arizona's Double-A affiliate, in Amarillo since 2019, at Hodgetown downtown. Mascot's a prairie dog named Ruffs.

They got here by beating Frisco 8-7 in Game 3 of the semifinals, closer Alfred Morillo finishing it with a strikeout and a backflip on the mound.

Manuel Peña was a Texas League All-Star after hitting 26 home runs.

Memphis vs. Rochester

International League Championship Series, Game 1
Tuesday, Sept. 22 — 7:45 p.m. ET
AutoZone Park, Memphis

Streaming: MiLB.TV, Bally Sports Live
Radio: Redbirds and Red Wings audio

Memphis won the International League first half — its first league title of any kind since joining in 2021, and its first playoff berth since 2018. Rochester is Washington's Triple-A club.

What this looks like from the outside

Both affiliates playing for championships in the same week is not an accident.

The Cardinals spent this season rebuilding under Chaim Bloom, and the system now has a 19-year-old catcher at the top of it, a 19-year-old Venezuelan starting a championship game, and a Dominican infielder who hit 41 home runs.

Two of those three arrived in trades for Willson Contreras and Ryan Helsley.

The last Springfield Cardinals team

The franchise rebrands after this season. New name, new logos, new uniforms, same ballpark, same affiliation. The new identity gets unveiled at a free launch party at Route 66 Stadium on Oct. 6.

"We'll always cherish the Springfield Cardinals era," general manager Dan Reiter said in August.

Twenty-two seasons, more than seven million fans. Tonight is the last home game under the name, and they can win a championship in it.

Schedules, results and prospect rankings via MiLB and MLB Pipeline.