Friday Pebble Report: Alving Mejias blipping on prospect radar, Morales rocked by Las Vegas

We don't follow the Dominican Summer League too closely at Purple Row, but sometimes prospects at our academy there do deserve some attention. That's the case with 17 year old Alving Mejias, who the Rockies signed last November for $250,000. The Venezuelan right hander has pitched in only two games thus far, but has gone nine innings allowing only three hits and no walks to go along with six strikeouts. Of the other promising names that the Rockies signed during the last International signing period, it looks like Manuel Montillo and Ramon Hurtado have had some command issues and Julian Yan has struggled at the plate but he did hit his first home run of the season a day or two ago.

Colorado Springs:

L 14-4

I'm going to start with the positives, here. Franklin Morales was throwing strikes, 61 in 97 pitches and he only allowed three walks. He did allow eight hits, including four for extra bases and nine runs in four and two thirds innings. This suggests a few things, first of all, his pitches probably lacked movement and were left up. This should be somewhat fixable, so in that sense the outing wasn't as discouraging as it could have been. The one other thing is that he's having the same issue Rockies pitchers were early in the season of finishing off innings. All but one of the nine runs he allowed scored with two outs, in three separate innings, so I am wondering if his head's fully into the game right now. 

Tulsa:

L 2-1

Jhoulys Chacin had a fine start, pitching all seven innings of the shortened game and allowed just two first inning runs while registering a 12-3 groundout ratio, but Tulsa couldn't give him any run support in the loss. Only two Drillers got hits, Jeff Kindel and Rex Rundgren

L 4-1

Joey Williamson's been called up to Tulsa, and in his debut game filling his normal second double header starter role pitched 2.2 innings of scoreless baseball for the Drillers. He allowed a pair of doubles to Daniel Descalson and two walks, and also struck out four. Xavier Cedeno came on in relief, and while he got the third out in the third inning without damage, he allowed two runs in the fourth, including one via homerun and the Cardinals went on to win from there. Tulsa's offense continues to struggle, Daniel Mayora and Darin Holcomb doubled, but the Drillers were otherwise shut down.

Modesto:

W 4-2

Lars Davis has a .333/.360/.542 line for the six games he's played in the month of June so far, it would be really nice if this is the start of a long possible breakout for the catcher. Davis collected two more hits yesterday, he was the only Nuts player with more than one. Cory Riordan had one of his best starts of the season by going six scoreless innings while striking out seven. Ching Lung Lo made his first appearance of the season in relief, giving up a run in less than an inning of work.

Asheville:

W 5-1

Ethan Hollingsworth had a solid start, racking up six more K's in six innings. Over his last four starts Hollingsworth has been just under a strikeout per inning, with 24 in 24.1 IP. Add in his GB rates and the added ability to punch out hitters helps his prospect status, albeit he's still mismatched in his age to competition level so take that with a caveat.

Scott Robinson hit his third homerun of the season off of Drive reliever Caleb Clay. Asheville scored all of its runs off the Drive bullpen, putting the game away with three unearned runs in the ninth. The Tourists offense should perhaps be thankful that Red Sox prospect Nick Hagadone is still recovering from Tommy John surgery, as the Greenville starter lasted only 2.2 innings but struck out four and allowed just one hit.