Thursday Pebble Report

Tulsa: Well, Wichita has certainly figured out how to beat the Drillers' potent offense: pitch around them. The Wranglers issued seven walks last night and probably could have issued a few more had the Drillers not been overly eager to make something happen. Wichita wound up winning five to two to push Tulsa to the brink of elimination. Marc Kaiser allowed all five runs in his seven innings, he allowed ten hits, two walks and struck out two. As usual, his GB/FB ratio was impressive, 11/5, but it was the seven line drives that really did him in.

Alvin Colina continues to be the only Driller batter to do fairly well in this series, he went one for three with a run scoring double. Jonathan Herrera made his AA batting debut (he subbed in as a pinch runner the night before) and went one for five. Tonight Stephen Register tries to avoid the sweep.

Tri-City: Andrew Graham is making a strong late push for PuRPs consideration, the right-hander struck out twelve in six innings in yesterday's four to three win, giving up two runs off three hits and two walks. His line in ten games as a starter: 52 IP, 2.08 ERA, 35 H, 15 BB, 50 K and he's 3-1 record wise. Jeff Kindel, Victor Ferrante and Brian Aguailar each had a pair of hits to help lead the offense. Aguailar might be one to keep an eye on that we haven't really mentioned as far as our catching depth goes.

Casper: David Christensen finished a homerun away from the cycle on a three for four night. Unfortanately, his was the only bat that showed up in a five to one loss to Orem. It's very nice, though, that he can finish the season on a positive note (assuming nothing goes terribly wrong in the finale tonight) as he had been struggling of late. This should give him something to build on for next season, and he remains one of the more potent bats in the system.