Colorado Springs: Byung Hyun Kim looked shaky, at best, in a rough five and two thirds at Tucson. Kim gave up twelve hits and seven runs in the outing. Particularly brutal was a five run fifth, in which six of the first seven Tucson batters Kim faced hit safely. At least we know he's throwing strikes, Kim didn't walk anybody and fanned three.
Tulsa: The Drillers lost a rain shortened game in Springfield, eight to five and fell a full game behind the Cards for the division lead. Though the game was truncated to five and a half innings, there were still plenty of fireworks. Matt Macri hit his third homerun of the year, Seth Smith and pitcher Marc Kaiser their first each, and Kaiser gave up a pair as well. Jordan Czarniecki went three for three with a double and Joe Koshansky had two hits as well. Czar's stats are looking muy bueno in the early going, far above what Tony Miller, Jeff Salazar, Choo Freeman and Cory Sullivan were able to put up in their first full seasons in AA. I'm hoping we have a better solution for our center field needs in him, especially if this pop (ten out of twenty-one hits for extra bases) he's found is real. The downside is he's a little old at 25, but not egregiously so. In other Driller news, Ubaldo Jiminez was named Texas League Pitcher of the Week.
Modesto The Nuts didn't play last night.
Asheville: Alright, Xavier Cedeno is going through the typical young and raw pitcher syndrome: one day he's good -like last night, six innings, seven hits, three runs and five K's with just one walk- and then the next he might be terrible. We still can't tell for sure what we've gotten with him and his powerful arm, or if it will all work out, but it's a fun game trying to speculate. Jason Van Kooten provided a timely solo homerun in his only at bat to bring the score to four to three Asheville, and Michael Paulk had two hits and EY Jr two SB's and each scored for the Tourists.