Colorado Springs: The Sky Sox lost eight to nothing. A couple of hits for Cory Sullivan, but that was about it for the highlights. Let's move on.
Tulsa: The Drillers along with the rest of our affiliates fared much better, winning seven to five over Arkansas and Angels' top prospect Nick Adenhart. Ryan Mattheus struck out seven and allowed only one run on three hits and three walks in six innings before running into trouble and being pulled in the beginning of the seventh after hitting a batter and giving up another single. Matt Daley would allow both inherited runners to score along with one of his own, so Mattheus couldn't pick up the W, but he's got some very solid peripherals on the season. Yesterday his GB/FB ratio was 9/2, it's been strong all season, as well as his K/BB rate which right now reads 25/6. At 23, he's not too old to be watching for what the rest of the season brings.
On offense, seven different Drillers scored, and only Christian Colonel and Aaron Rifkin had more than one hit, Colonel going three for three with a walk as well. Jonathan Herrera and Jordan Czarniecki both had one for three plus two walks lines, and though Corey Wimberly hasn't gotten a Texas League hit yet, he did walk, steal his first base, and score.
Update [2007-5-5 12:37:18 by Russ]: Franklin Morales was scheduled to start yesterday; however, he may go on the DL for tweaking his hamstring the day before.
Modesto: Brandon Durden had one bad inning out of seven, and one pitch he'd really like to have back in that inning, but otherwise pitched very well last night in the Nuts' ten to four victory. Besides the sixth, when he walked two batters allowed a single and a grand slam, the rest of his line looked like this:
6 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 2 BB's, 4 K
Of course, we've got to look at the whole tamale, and that salami he added to it just messes up the recipe.
The Nuts' offense had some solid production throughout, with Eric Young Jr swiping two more bases to bring his season total up to 16. He also scored twice. In addition, Dexter Fowler, Chris Nelson, Phillip Cuadrado and Travis Becktel all had two hits apiece to help drive the ten run onslaught. Brandon Hynick starts tonight and tries to extend his scoreless inning streak, the Modesto Bee's Brian VanderBeek has more Hynick content, as well as a note that Xavier Cedeno is back in the rotation after returning from injury.
Asheville: Manager Joe Mikulik picked up career win number 500, yesterday, thanks to another strong performance from his staff's ace. Along with Hynick and Greg Reynolds, the Rockies' pitching prospect that seems most ready to make a move up would be Asheville's Keith Weiser. That all three of them were 2006 draft picks shows how strong that draft is shaping up in the pitcher department, the bats might take awhile to catch up it seems. At any rate, Weiser improved to 5-0 on the season by pitching seven and two-thirds innings and allowing just two runs on seven hits. He was pitching to contact yesterday, apparently, as he walked none and struck out none, but his season line of 27/2 K/BB remains very solid. He had a 16/7 GB/FB ratio, which helps to show how he got through without much damage in a hitter's park.
Michael McKenry led the offensive charge with a pair of doubles and a homerun. Daniel Mayora also had two doubles and a single and scored three times. Not to be outdone on the Double-Double fest, Hector Gomez also hit a pair and scored twice. Now I'm hungry for In-N-Out burgers for some weird reason. Anyway, to get quotes from Mikulik on his milestone, you can read more about the game at the Citizen Times.