Friday Pebble Report: Reynolds struggles in victory, Chacin a bit better in defeat

Colorado Springs: W 9-6 (1-0)

Greg Reynolds gave up five runs in four and a third innings, but the Sky Sox rallied to beat the Las Vegas 51's last night. Matt Murton hit a homerun and scored twice , Jonathan Herrera tripled, walked twice and scored two as well, as did Eric Young Jr., who also stole his first two bases of the 2009 season. Kenny Perez had a pair of hits and drove in three, and Dan Ortmeier also hit a run scoring triple in the win. Joel Peralta picked up the "w" with one and two thirds innings of scoreless work in relief of Reynolds.

Tulsa: L 9-3 (0-1)

Jhoulys Chacin took the loss in his 2009 debut, giving up three runs (one earned) in five and two thirds innings. His pitches seemed to start elevating toward the end of his appearance, at one point he had a groundout to flyout ratio of 8/3 but finished at 8/6, so there are signs that he's still just warming up. Newly acquired minor league free agent Ryan Harvey (once a substantial Cubs prospect) hit a homerun in his organizational debut and Jeff Kindel was the only other Drillers hitter to have an extra base hit with a double.

Three errors by the Drillers shows that the whole team could use some tightening before the season gets too far away from them, albeit it could have been worse, one error on Jeff Kindel was overturned and ruled a single instead.

Here's the Tulsa World recap.

Asheville: L 0-1 (10 innings) (0-1)

The Tourists lost a classic pitcher's duel, with no run scoring until Tyler Trice gave up a bases loaded single in the bottom of the tenth to allow the Kannapolis Intimidators to squeak out the victory. Intimidators starter Greg Infante was absolutely brilliant, pitching six innings of no hit baseball with 11 strikeouts. He had a perfect game going until Tyler Massey drew a fifth inning walk before being eliminated on a double play. Another walk to Ryan Peisel was the only other blemish on Infante's six innings of work.  

While Infante was the better pitcher, the work Robinson Fabian did was just as effective. Fabian worked six scoreless innings as well, mixing a low 90's fastball that topped out at 96 mph with a curve that froze several batters. Fabian wound up striking out four, giving up five hits and a walk in his six innings. 

The Tourists registered five errors, but I want to point out that the one charged to Carlos Martinez sounded particularly dubious from the radio broadcast, as he couldn't come up with a backhanded play.

On offense, not much to cheer about, the opposing pitcher deserves a lot of credit, but if you read my preview last night you should get the feeling that Tyler Massey might be our next prospect to come out of relative anonymity into prominence. In addition to drawing the walk mentioned above, he also recorded the Tourists first hit of the season (it was a bloop single, but he smoked a line drive just foul the previous pitch), and unlike some other corner outfielders, he didn't strike out a single time.

Jason McGill gives a brief recap at his On Base with the Asheville Tourists blog.