Besides Franklin Morales, our system was full of outstanding pitching yesterday.
Colorado Springs: Ubaldo Jmenez came up with probably his best outing of the season, lasting six and two thirds innings while just giving up one run on five hits and three walks. He struck out eight, and registered an eight to four GB to FB ratio on his outs by contact. Joe Koshansky helped support him with his twelfth homerun of the season in the four to two victory.
Tulsa: Matt Daley continued too fill in for Greg Reynolds, and he did an alright job through three and a third. The more impressive outing was turned in by Juan Morillo, however, who struck out four in two innings. Combined with Judd Songster and Steven Register, the Drillers bullpen locked the door on Corpus Christi in the six to four win.
Modesto: Brandon Hynick pitched a complete game four hitter, walking two and striking out eleven. The one run he allowed was on a homerun. Chris Nelson homered himself, and Eric Young stole two bases and scored twice, and Jeff Kindel had a four hit game to support Hynick as he bounced back from what was his worst outing of the season last time through the rotation.
Asheville: The top four batters in the Asheville lineup (Geoff Strickland, Hector Gomez, Daniel Mayora and Michael Paulk) all had multi-hit games, fueling the seven to five victory over Kannapolis. The Tourists' bullpen continues to be very difficult to crack through this season, probably making Kannapolis happy it's scoring early in the game this morning.
Tri-City: Bruce Billings pitched a perfect five innings against Boise before he was pulled for hitting his pitch limit. Cory Riordan continued the perfection for two more frames before cracking in the eighth to allow one run on three hits in his four inning save. You are probably wondering how this Billings guy wasn't drafted before the thirtieth round. That's a good question, I'm wondering it too, now. He's not an overpowering type and his stock dropped for that, but he's shown considerable polish with his location and mound presence thus far, making it difficult for Riordan to crack the rotation. Darin Holcomb hit a homerun among his two hits, and Michael Mitchell also got two hits and drove in two for the Dust Devils in the four to one victory.
Casper: Zack Murry collected three more hits in the seven to three Casper loss, raising his average to .412 which is good enough for fifth in the Pionner League right now. There weren't that many other highlights.