Colorado Springs: In two games against Las Vegas this season, Ubaldo Jimenez has now pitched six and a third innings and given up 15 hits, 16 runs and 10 walks. That's an incredibly horrendous line, and had it happened just once we could possibly one-off it as just a bad outing, but twice at different yards makes that difficult to do. I'm not completely giving up on U-ball contributing for this season yet, but right now it looks like I grossly overestimated him. Heltonfan of the Rockies forum at FanHome warned me that would be the case, but I stood my ground based on a solid Spring. Oops. At this point U-ball needs a big turnaround to even meet HeltonFan's more conservative projections. I'll continue hoping for more than that, but early returns aren't good here.
I might have done better at predicting a big rebound for Ian Stewart, as his first HR of the season last night along with a single brought his average up to .327. He's only beginning to emerge for the year and it will be good for him to get some AB's down in the Springs, but you'd have a hard time convincing me that he'd be worse than John Mabry in the left handed PH role off the bench. I doubt people in the Rockies organization would argue that point either, but they're right in that development has to come first here. Of course, if you have another hitter that's smacking right handers to the tune of .333/.371/.545 and just went two for five last night with a triple against them, he might be better than John Mabry too. Of course, who am I kidding? Ryan Spilborghs isn't left handed, to call him up would mean you could use him against both RHP's and LHP's and we wouldn't want that, would we?
Former Rockie Choo Freeman did much of the smacking of U-ball, by the way, with his first HR of 2007 also, and he contributed an outfield assist on the final play of the game for one more twisty dagger in our hearts.
Tulsa: Jonathan Herrera, back in the lineup and staying hot with a two for four night including a double is the only highlight for this game, unless you count Jordan Czarniecki's three walks. Herrera's two hits came in his first two AB's, which gave him a streak of ten consecutive plate appearances reaching base. He's been making some very impressive contact numbers the last ten games or so.
Modesto: Brandon Hynick, on the other hand has been making some very unimpressive contact. The good thing is that is in reference to the contact coming from the batters he's been facing. The Nuts' right hander extended his streak of not allowing an earned run to 18 innings with another nifty seven inning outing giving up just three singles. He also struck out three and walked none. His GB/FB ratio wasn't impressive at 5/13, but apparently there were only two line drives among the thirteen flies. Chris Nelson had three hits, including two doubles to lead the offense in the five to nothing victory, apparently he likes playing Bakersfield when Hynick pitches, because his last three hit game came under similar circumstances. Pedro Strop had another scoreless inning of relief, inducing three ground balls.
Asheville: Simon Ferrer picked up his first win of the season, as the Tourists' won seven to five. As with his last outing, Ferrer's line is much more solid than the final box score will make it look. He dominated Rome for five innings but started running out of steam in the sixth and then was sent back out and got in real trouble in the seventh inning when he allowed four straight hits before getting pulled. Remember Ferrer pitched in relief last season, and is still relatively new to pitching period, so some endurance issues deep in his starts are to be expected at first. Offensively, Daniel Mayora, Hector Gomez and Anthony Jackson each had a pair of hits, while Bret Berglund had a hit and two walks. Mayora doubled and knocked in two of the Tourists' seven runs.