Monday Pebble Report:

Colorado Springs: L 4-3

The Rockies have called up three important left handed bats from the Sky Sox lineup over the weekend, Joe Koshansky's obviously a little tiffed that they haven't made it four. A day after hitting for the cycle, JoKo went two for three with a double and a walk. Yet another left handed Sky Sox bat (yeah, it seems like that's all they have this season) Chris Frey, went three for four. Don't worry you two, at the rate the Rox are dropping like flies, your opportunities in the bigs will come all too soon. Actually both Koshansky and Frey are thriving at Security Service Field while having more tepid lines elsewhere, to a considerably more extreme degree than Smith, Stewart or Sullivan. I imagine we'll have to see more balance in their splits before they too are considered.

The person with a greater chance at getting a call-up in the next couple of weeks is Glendon Rusch, as noted by Tracy Ringolsby this morning, who went six innings yesterday allowing just three hits and two walks and is looking fantastic in AAA, after tanking at the MLB level earlier in the season. It becomes a rather typical fifth starter decision at that point between the lesser of two leasts, Jorge de la Rosa or Glendon Rusch? Not quite the same as Arizona deciding if Maz Scherzer or Randy Johnson are the odd men out in their rotation.

Tulsa: L 8-9

Neil Wilson homered and doubled in his first two plate appearances, walked twice in his last two, and Dexter Fowler, Daniel Carte and Justin Nelson each also had a pair of hits. Xavier Cedeno continues to be having issues since returning to Tulsa's rotation a couple of weeks ago, but his groundball rate seems to be getting better at least.

Casey Weathers allowed a run on three hits in his one inning of work, but had a much better ratio of strikes thrown than his last appearance.

Modesto: L 0-1

It's still feast or famine with Shane Lindsay, yesterday he took the loss despite having one of those "feast" starts, allowing just two hits and two walks and striking out eight over six innings. The famines, by the way, just typically aren't that bad for him outside the walks. Here are some interesting Lindsay tidbits:

He's allowed just one homerun every 47.5 innings in his professional career.

He's allowed extra base hits just once every 23 batters he's faced.

His opponent vital line of .194/.338/.250 represents the fourth lowest OPS allowed among starters in the Rockies system right now (not counting Rusch's small sample) to Jhoulys Chacin (.510),  Connor Graham (.551) and teammate Aneury Rodriguez (.576).

Asheville: W 9-3

So, after yesterday's thumping of Columbus the T's are once again up 2-0 on a weak foe, today they need to continue the job. Of course, with Jhoulys Chacin pitching tonight, that seems like almost a given that they will.

Okay, Brian Rike, with his tenth homerun of the season, and Darin Holcomb, with his nineteenth and twentieth doubles of the season, were the offensive heroes for the Tourists again last night. Their value is a topic worth debating. Take a look at the SAL's OBP leaders, and they are right there in the top five, but the three guys ahead of them were only on the fringes of their teams' prospect lists headed into the season despite being around the same age. I guess the same could be said of Holcomb, but Rike was considered one of our top fifteen or so. There are some differences between those other players and the Tourists two, Rike's OBP is driven by walks, he leads the SAL with 32 this season, while the rest, including
Holcomb, are mostly BABIP driven.

Holcomb's extra base hit rate of one every 6.92 at bats beats everybody on that board, but how much of that is McCormick Field? Actually not much, Holcomb's 1/7.76 AB road extra base hit rate still beats most of the other SAL leaders' cumulative lines, and the one exception, Matt Cusick, only has a 1/11.29 extra base hit rate on the road. In short, I think we're safe keeping these two in relatively high esteem. Obviously, Rike's got to cut down on the K's and both will need to be weighed with their ages in mind, but there's certainly some substance to their status with Rockies prospect observers right now.