Saturday Pebble Report:

by Rox Girl on Aug 16, 2008 8:13 AM MDT in Pebble Report

Colorado Springs: Postponed

Tulsa: 2-1

Zach Parker seems to get motivated by beating the team he spent most of the 2004-2007 seasons with, as for the second time in the last couple of weeks he tossed a gem against the Drillers. Alan Johnson pitched as effectively for Tulsa, shutting out Frisco for seven innings before a game tying, one-out RBI double by Elvis Andrus in the eighth chased him. Justin Nelson has been having a particularly brutal week on defense, as for the second time in three days a late fielding error by him proved costly, this time allowing the winning run to get on board in the ninth before being doubled in for the walk-off defeat.

Eric Young had three hits, including a double and scored the Drillers only run. Jeff Kindel added a pair of hits as well in the loss.

Modesto: L 1-7

Just like that, Michael McKenry's lucky walk streak disappears as he went zero for four with three strikeouts. Meanwhile, Brandon Durden got knocked around in three innings and the only scoring the Nuts could muster was a Jason Van Kooten solo shot in the third.

Asheville: L 3-6

The Tourists looked great beating up a weak Lexington team on the road last weekend, but since returning home have gone 1-4 against stronger competition. This is not a good sign for the T's hopes of securing a South Atlantic League championship this year. One big reason is that Darin Holcomb's struggling to a .236/.288/.273 line this month, and while he's still making a lot of contact, he 's just not getting squared on pitches of late. I think it might just be a sign of fatigue in his first taste of full-season play, but his slump makes it important to watch how he starts in Modesto in 2009.

Connor Graham had a mixed start. The record shows some pretty hard contact and ten hits off of him in six innings led to five runs, but there are also some positives. The Marlins have a talented offensive squad at Greensboro, with Mike Stanton and Matt Dominguez being elite prospects and a couple of other players being decent ones. Stanton went two for three off Graham with a double and a strikeout, but Dominguez was held hitless with two K's. In all Graham finished with nine strikeouts in six innings and two walks.

Tri-City: L 0-3

The only knock on Christian Friedrich's start last night would be a somewhat out of character flyball rate, but other than that he was just as dominant as usual of late, striking out eight and walking none in five innings, allowing just four hits. Friedrich's 27/2 K/BB ratio for the month of August in just 16 1/3 innings is outpacing even Shane Lindsay's 2005 in terms of K percentage, but with much better control. This kind of pace indicates he's ready to pitch as far up as Modesto right now, which would give him a late 2010 estimate for being ready for the majors.

Casper: Postponed

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I would expect Friedrich

to display a flyball tendency going forward as is. His profile is extremely similar to that of Rich Hill, wth a fastball that gets good marks for deception and at times velocity, but a dependence on a big bender for high K totals. The break style of the curve lends itself more to flyballs anyways. His GB% of 49% looks solid now, but I think it will start to come down as he faces more polished hitters. The key for Friedrich will be the development of the cutter/slider he supposedly picked up this season. That likely could become a go-to pitch with runners on, if he can get enough two plane break on the pitch, but again, I can’t make that determination until I get to see the pitch for myself….

…but with his surprising polish, that could be by the second half of next season.
The question now will be if Friedrich is moved to Asheville to assist in the playoffs. He is too good for Tri City and it could help his development to take a brief tour through Low A in route to Modesto for ’09.

by David OhNo on Aug 16, 2008 11:37 AM MDT 0 recs

The problem is that Asheville's issues lately aren't with their pitching staff

Although a pitcher the caliber of Friedrich would help anyway, and I could see a playoff rotation of Graham/Friedrich/Billings or Lindsay being pretty hard to get around. I like the idea of breaking the RHP’s up with Friedrich in the middle.

For 2009, I don’t know how well he or the Rockies would be served by an Asheville stop, his short season is saying he’s ready for high A, might as well put him there. The early season SAL is so favorable to college pitchers anyway that I’d expect he’d put up just as out of place numbers as he is now, I’d rather see what he does against hitters that are more on his level.

by Rox Girl on Aug 16, 2008 12:09 PM MDT up 0 recs

Trailing in the path of the Machine

Next year I’d like to see Driedrich follow what Chacin did this year. Startoff in Asheville. Build confidence and innings. Then on to Modesto. Start 2010 in Tulsa and finish the year in Denver.

2010 August/September Rockies Rotation

1. Cookie
2. UBall
3. Franchise
4. The Machine
5. Friedrich … needs a nickname..

by roxhead on Aug 16, 2008 2:03 PM MDT up 0 recs

Asheville's issues

I’m not sure I agree that the team’s slide isn’t more pitching related. Granted, several of the position guys have trailed off a bit, but if you look at the starting pitcher stats (ex Fabian), every one of them has shown a drop-off over the last 5-6 weeks. It’s not that they’re getting clobbered. It just looks to me like plain old fashioned fatigue. They’re all leaving some balls up, not throwing the good sharp breaking stuff, etc. It’s August and I wonder if it’s a simple case of most of them hitting the weather wall. Mix in some general soreness and Chacin’e departure and the results are almost predictable. Getting Friedrich here would be a win/win for him and the team. BTW, it’s not as though his workload at Tri-City has been excessive. I’d love to see a #1 pick in a playoff atmosphere.
Last year I read an interview with the Augusta manager where he said the Giants have a policy of inserting a sixth starter into the rotation in August in order to combat the fatigue that most of these players experience from playing in the heat and humidity for their first full season. They just feel it keeps their guys fresher at the end. He said the net effect is that they each end up having one less start over the last five weeks or so. Sounds pretty smart. I wonder why the Rox organization doesn’t do something like that?
Again, our guys just look a little slower than they were in April.

by hobfan on Aug 16, 2008 3:11 PM MDT 0 recs

That's something I was noticing in Lexington

But I was seeing it more with the position players like Holcomb, Rike and Clark than I was with the pitching staff. Billings, if anything, looked sharper, although I could see it being an issue with Graham. The bullpen did look gassed except for Escalona, so Friedrich bumping somebody like Fabian to the pen would be an added benefit of the call-up.

by Rox Girl on Aug 16, 2008 3:46 PM MDT up 0 recs