It's my day off so I can get this up quicker than the usual, so let's begin. For the last couple of days the farm has gone in the exact opposite direction of the Rox. Two days ago, when the Rockies lost, all of our affiliates won. Yesterday the Rockies won, but all of our affiliates lost. Go figure. There were only a couple of notable performances, so this might not take long.
Juan Morillo was fantastic at Asheville. He threw six innings, scattered five hits walked only three allowing one run while striking out ten. The bullpen, particularly Chris Buechner, failed to hold onto the lead however and the Tourists wound up losing six to five. Matt Miller had three hits and a walk, and Joe Koshansky went two for two with three walks in the loss.
In Modesto it was a terrible night for our top tier prospects as Matt Macri, Ian Stewart and Seth Smith combined to go zero for twelve, with eight strikeouts and no walks. Stewart's three K's leave him with an abysmal 1/15 BB/K ratio for the year thus far. What's more, bullpen prospect Jim Miller couldn't retire a batter in the bottom of the ninth, allowing three runs on three hits and a walk. Joe Gaetti hit his fifth homerun of the season as well as a double in three at bats in the loss.
In Tulsa, the Drilliers lost nine to three to Midland as our players, prospects or not, really didn't have anything noteworthy happen, good or bad. Zach Parker was fairly effective through five, but in the top of the sixth allowed back to back homeruns to lead off the inning and got pulled. Tony Miller went zero for two, but he actually got on sixty percent of the time with three walks. Dan Conway had a homerun for his only hit, Ryan Spillborghs only had one single, but he had two outfield assists including a strike to Conway to cut down Brian Stavisky at home to end that sixth inning.
Colorado Springs got shellacked thirteen to zero and wisely invoked the ten-run mercy rule with two down in the top of the eighth. Well, actually the rain that was falling along the front range gave the Sky Sox a better official excuse but we know what they were really thinking. Jeff Baker had two hits including a double to raise his AAA average to .200. When considering that it was at .000 a week ago that doesn't seem so bad. Denny Stark pitched about as effectively as Byung Hyun over five innings, but without the run and bullpen support. Zach McClellan gave up seven runs in just two thirds of an inning in the top of the eighth before they called it quits. Alex Serrano only gave up one hit (a homerun unfortunately) and struck out two in his inning of work.
I'll have an updated top ten (actually I'm thinking I'll go fifteen deep) prospect list up later today as well as D-back stuff I suppose as we welcome them for a four game set.