Can we say "Cornball" with the title Rox Girl? Seriously. But with Chris Iannetta becoming the first member of the 2004 Rockies draft to make it to the bigs, it marks the first hit of the second wave of Rockies prospects that we've been hyping for the last few seasons. Wave one pretty much ended with last night's winner, Jeff Francis and the rest of the 2002 draft(*-see note). Wave two begins with the Ian Stewart and the 2003 draft, but in case you haven't noticed, nobody from that 2003 draft has made the show yet. Enter 2004 selection Chris Iannetta. Congratulations Chris! And for my fellow Rox fans, this is only the beginning, albeit as has been mentioned on this site before, we need a title for this gathering storm, or you'll make me resort to further cheesiness.
Colorado Springs: The Sky Sox lost ten to eight as Mike Esposito unraveled in the fourth and fifth innings. Josh Wilson tried to keep things close with a four for five night including a homerun and double and three runs scored, Vinny Castilla, Jeff Salazar and Sean Barker also had multi-hit games.
Tulsa: There's a certain class of pitcher in the Rockies system that seems to be trying to recapture Aaron Cook's mojo and rise to the top without a classical "out" pitch that they can call on in times of deep peril. You can tell this type by their outstanding GB/FB ratios but very few strikeouts. They will always be overlooked by the prospect punditry, and perhaps rightfully so. Tri-City's Andrew Kreidermacher of the 20/3 GB/FB complete game the other night fits this bill. At any rate, perhaps the most advanced of these pitchers is Tulsa's Marc Kaiser, who yesterday tossed another six innings of shutout ball with a thirteen to four GB/FB ratio. Joe Koshansky hit his 28th double and came around in the eighth inning to score for the one to nothing victory. Jim Miller has been turning it on of late and picked up his eleventh save with also hot Josh Newman getting the win for pitching a scoreless eighth.
Modesto: Dragon Lo has been lucky at times this season in the run support he's been given. This wasn't the case last night as he was pounded beyond the reach of his offense in the nine to five loss. A lesson he can take from this: five walks in four and two thirds is usually a bad thing. Jonathan Herrera hit his seventh homerun and finished with four RBI to give him 74 on the season thus far.
Asheville: Maybe Lo's traditional luck was passed on to Xavier Cedeno, who despite giving up five runs in five innings picked up the "W" over Greenville. EY extended his systemwide best ever stolen base total to 83 with one more last night. Dexter Fowler homered and doubled as the Tourists took the Drive to town, eight to seven.
Tri-City: Really, that's the kind of nickname they come up with in the Sally league, it makes it too easy. Oh, wait, we're moving on, sorry. Anyway, I can't wait to see what Hector Gomez makes of McCormick's short porch next season, but for right now he'll have to pass away the time in Tri-City's less friendly batting environs. Gomez went zero for three in his Dust Devil debut last night, but with Andrew Graham throwing a no hitter for six innings, who cares? Graham struck out a season high nine and walked only two in the gem. He did have a very un-Kreidermacher like 0/8 GB/FB ratio, but no hits is no hits. I'll take it. Jeff Kindel, Bret Berglund and Anthony Jackson all had multi-hit games.
Casper: One player who we can probably assume is insanely jealous of Gomez getting the call to Tri-City right now is Ronny Lopez. Lopez lost his sixth straight decision last night as he gave up seven runs on eight hits and four walks before getting pulled in the fifth. The offense tried to rescue him ,but came up short in the nine to eight loss. I like the multi-walk games from Jay Cox and David Christensen, definitely a good sign despite their lack of hits.