Before I get into a recap of yesterday's games, I want to remind everybody to make their selections for the best players at each affiliate in the awards thread that I posted yesterday. Also, I thought today it might be fun to look back at our preseason prediction thread and see how smart we were.
Which brings me to the major crow I have to happily eat regarding Joe Koshansky:
Hmm... too slow through the box. Sure thing, Roxie, he was soooo exposed this season. Yeah... I've got some retrospection to do there, that's for sure. Well at least I called Rami, sort of, and Manuel Corpas.
Colorado Springs: Omar Quintanilla doubled and drove in three, and Jason Smith doubled and homered to help lead the Sky Sox to a six to three victory, but the Rockies have to be thinking about what direction they want to go with these two in 2007, as it's beginning to look like we might have better options at the major league level for both middle infield positions.
Tulsa: The Drillers start Texas League playoff acton tonight against Wichita, the team that swept them over the weekend. Why should we expect any different this time around? Juan Morillo, for one reason, as our next big up and coming pitcher didn't pitch against the Wranglers this past weekend, but he does get the start tonight.
Modesto: The Nuts are finished for the season, and I, for one am saddened.
Asheville: They used to say that a knuckleballer could never work in Coors Field, but the prevailing wisdom of that must be shifting now that the humidor is in play. Simon Ferrer is one of two Tourist pitchers in the early tilt (the completion of a suspended game that started on Monday) to have converted from the field to the mound and both are intriguing. Pedro Strop because he has a cannon, and Ferrer because he's developed the knuckler. Simon's 26, but if there's one place on the diamond that age doesn't matter at all, it's with a knuckleball pitcher. What doesn matter is that he continues to put up results like yesterday's five innings, three hit shutout baseball. Strop came on afterwards and gave up the winning run, but these two will continue to be among the system's most intriguing storylines come 2007. Asheville was one hit in the second game (a Florentino Nunez solo homer) and lost again despite a decent outing from Xavier Cedeno to close out the season.
Tri-City: Josh Sullivan fell apart in his last outing of 2006 and the Dust-Devils lost the game, but Will Harris struck out the side in his inning of work and now has a 42/9 K/BB ratio in 31 innings of work.
Casper: Casper lost again but at least it was closer than usual, four to three.