Really the only big games from the farm were turned in by our short-season pitchers and by the offense, particularly Joe Koshansky, at Asheville. Starting with Casper, pitcher Aneury Rodriguez pitched five innings and gave up only three hits and a walk while striking out five. Read Rockiesbiggestfan's diary to the right for a more detailed look at our seventeen year old phenom.
Is Simons going to be like another Aaron Cook, with wicked stuff but lacking the power numbers?
The second strong pitching performance was turned in by Zach Simons, who also only allowed three hits, but he walked three as well and only struck out three while pitching two outs into the sixth for Tri-City, the Dust Devils wound up losing in extras two to one as neither team mustered a run until the eleventh. Simons had this to say to the Tri-City Herald
Asheville rode two blasts by Koshansky and big games by most of the team, including Chris Nelson (two doubles among his three hits, plus a walk), Matt Miller (two for two with three walks) and Jose Valdez (four for four with a HR). In a bit of an understatement, Samuel Deduno wasn't quite as good, surrendering five runs on seven hits and six walks in just four innings.
Modesto didn't win, but that's only because they couldn't play due to wet field conditions.
Tulsa lost in the AA debut of Chris Ianetta, although it wasn't his fault, Chris finished with two hits in four at bats and what's more, he picked a runner off first. Ubaldo Jiminez pitched alright, giving up three runs and seven hits plus two walks in six innings (he also K'd seven), but it's clearly not the dominance we're used to from him.
Colorado Springs split a pair, Omar Quintanilla hit a key triple driving in the tying run in the seventh inning of game two and then got driven in as the winning run by Ryan Shealy a couple of pitches later. Shealy also homered in game one, and Jeff Salazar had two hits in that loss.
Be sure to read Jack Etkin's column in the News about Seth Smith prepping for post-season laser eye correction as well as his usual tidbits.
Update [2005-7-25 13:50:2 by Rox Girl]:
Baseball America's Daily Dish talks about Joe, Matt and the Tourists' friendly confines of McCormick Field. This is why I've been hesitant to be too vocal in demanding a call-up for Miller and Joe K, but Koshansky's power seems a little more sustainable in other locales than Miller's does.
Also, it amazes me to see the relative anonymity Rockies' prospects continue to enjoy among amateur prospect watchers, to wit: Rotoworld came out with it's midseason top 150 prospects in all of baseball and while Ian Stewart is still number 11, you won't find two of our more prominent names even mentioned, and this is even after Juan Morillo and Chris Ianetta strutted their stuff at the Futures Game. Anyway, the Rockies prospects ranked:
Stewart #11
Chris Nelson #72
Ubaldo Jiminez #95
Omar Quintanilla #135
Jeff Baker #149
They said they would have ranked Tulo #125 had he been eligible, but that still leaves out the two I mentioned above as well as Shealy, Macri, and S. Smith who are probably as good as or better than some of the names who did make the list, plus Jeff Salazar and Tony Miller who arguments could be made for as well. And that's not even getting into our low level pitching... Oh well, they'll jump on the bandwagon postseason when all the pros start talking about how well off we are.