Thursday Pebble Report:

Colorado Springs: L 4-6

Ryan Shealy did to the Sky Sox what he used to do for them, hitting a two run homer off Josh Hall as part of a four run second inning that in effect put this game out of reach early. Sean Barker had a pair of doubles in the loss.

Tulsa: L 3-10

Keith Weiser's debut for the Drillers didn't go quite the way he intended, and while he was left in long enough to see some success with a scoreless sixth and seventh, the six runs he gave up in the first five innings show the distance he has to bridge to make a successful jump to AA. Speaking of jumps, in a small detail, you might notice that Dexter Fowler missed last night's game, and his name no longer appears on Tulsa's roster.

Modesto: W 6-2

The Nuts offense woke up just in time for Jhoulys Chacin to record another win, scoring three after he had already finished his work for the night -and left trailing 1-00 in the top of the sixth. Chacin's outing wasn't particularly dominant by his standards, but it was effective nonetheless, allowing no extra base hits and just one run from seven baserunners in all. Daniel Mayora's two run homer keyed the sixth inning rally, and the Michaels Paulk and McKenry each had a pair of hits.

Asheville: Off

In my most recent farm report for the Rocky, I tried to look for some prospects that aren't getting any notice this season. In my research, the Tourists actually came out looking relatively dismal right now in terms of future MLB players when you go by the statistics. You have one bat in Darin Holcomb that seems likely to make it, one pitcher in Connor Graham (two if you count Shane Lindsay) and then several players who grade out as merely organizational filler with a few that might, if they're lucky, crack the bigs as fringe replacements for a cup of coffee. Now before everybody jumps on me, this isn't necessarily what I believe of these papers, it's just the cold objectivity of the statistical record at the moment. Of the position players, the three besides Holcomb that are closest to being on an MLB trajectory are Jeff Cunningham, Kevin Clark and David Christensen. As corner pleyers, they're going to need to step up their play a couple of degrees to start getting real notice, but it won't hurt to keep an eye on how these three finish out the year.

Tri-City: L 3-6

There isn't much difference from the five innings Parker Frazier threw and the five innings of Chacin's stint other than that Frazier was unfortunate to clump all of his bad stuff into one inning rather than spreading it out. Four runs scored in the third, but in the other four innings, Parker had a one hit shutout and looked very good. Thomas Field remains a clutch RBI machine, driving in all three Dust Devil runs while Scott Robinson scored a pair of them.

Casper: Off