Saturday Pebble Report:

Colorado Springs: W 12-2

I'm liking what I've been seeing of Sean Smith. He's keeping the ball down and not giving up a whole lot of damage. He didn't quite make it a full six innings yesterday, giving up the two runs in that frame and showing signs of weakness after shutting out Portland to that point, but he did pick up and deserve the win. The Sky Sox part of the score indicates that runs probably could have been given up a lot more easily with less effective pitching last night. On that offensive side, Ian Stewart hit his fourteenth AAA homerun of the season and Jayson Nix (3 hits) and Christian Colonel (4 hits) each had big nights.

Tulsa: L 0-5

The Drillers were shutout and limited to three hits, one by starter Brandon Hynick, who also happened to meet the quality start threshold with three runs allowed in six innings.

Modesto: L 2-6

Daniel Mayora went two for four and is batting .421 for the month of June after starting the season miserably. He's still showing little power, but the contact skills are looking much better. Esmil Rogers took the loss after going five innings and allowing four runs.

UPDATE: according to the comments Jhoulys Chacin has finally been promoted from Asheville and will join the Nuts this weekend.

Asheville: L 3-9

Connor Graham had one of his least effective outings of late, allowing five runs in as many innings including two off of a homerun in a three inning third. Everth Cabrera had a pair of hits and a pair of stolen bases (49 out of 56 on the season now) as well as his twentieth error of the year in the loss.

Tri-City: W 2-1

There was no scoring in this contest until Bo Bowman and Johnny Bowden broke through in the top of the ninth, and then Austin Chambliss bended a little, but didn't break in the bottom half for the save in the Dust Devils win. Juan Nicasio pitched five scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and a walk and struck out nine with five of the six outs he got off of contact coming on groundballs.

Casper: W 3-2

Kane Simmons went four for four with two doubles and a homerun, while Dan Houston, Chad Rose, Brandon Walker and Kurt Yacko put in a sparkling effort on the mound in this Ghosts victory. With four more strikeouts in an inning and a third yesterday (notching his fourth save of the season already), Yacko has been perfect in four and two thirds innings this season, striking out nine of the fourteen batters he's faced. Rose also has nine K's in four and two thirds innings this season, albeit a few more baserunners, and Houston also looked sharp in five innings, allowing the two Idaho Falls runs, but only on three hits and he struck out seven.