Thursday Pebble Report:

Colorado Springs: I should be excited that BK had another strong outing for the Sky Sox. I mean, what if he's back? What if his five inning, four hit, one walk, eight K performance (80 pitches thrown) is precisely what we can expect when he returns to the Rockies? Okay, obviously that would be a fantastic thing, especially if he could somehow put a stringof three quality starts together, I would imagine we'd find a willing trade partner for his services. I just don't expect it, and am covering my eyes just thinking about the pending train wreck I do expect.

Ian Stewart had two more hits and scored a couple of runs, Joe Koshansky and Clint Barmes also hit twice, but the Sky Sox lost anyway. Stewart's stat line on the season is decent, but it's not close to middle of the order hitter territory yet. Let's hope some consistent power starts materializing soon.

Tulsa: Rained out, Greg Reynolds pitches tonight instead.

Modesto: Alan Johnson's usually one of the more consistent pitchers in the system, he doesn't overwhelm with any eye popping numbers, but he usually goes out and provides a bunch of quality innings without getting hit very hard and without giving up the free passes. That wasn't the case yesterday, as in just over five innings he gave up nine hits, three walks, and a hit batsman. Two of the hits were of the homerun variety. Miraculously, he only gave up three runs through all of this, but Modesto's offense couldn't do better than that and took the loss.

Asheville: Andrew Kreidermacher did a pretty good job of making us forget about Josh Sullivan's injury. Kreidermacher pitched five innings and gave up just six hits and an unearned run, while striking out three. This was his fourth unearned run of the year, so his 0.52 ERA is a bit deceptive, but that's not to say he hasn't been pitching very well this season. Daniel Mayora, Hector Gomez and Geoff Strickland all homered. Mayora had two doubles as well, and Gomez also added a two-bagger to his line. Michael Paulk doubled and singled to keep his AVG in the upper stratosphere at .419, and yes, that does lead the Sally League by a wide margin.

That was win 499 in Joe Mikulik's career, today, he goes for 500.