Colorado Springs: W 13-0
Edwin Bellorin homered twice and drove in four runs, and Franklin Morales continued his mercurial season with another one of his really good outings. I fully expect the seven walk four inning blunder next time out as he seems to remain a tough nut tot crack.
Tulsa: W 4-3
Brandon Hynick's gone six innings or more in each of his last ten starts, and while he's had a couple of noteworthy stinkers, he's been overall pretty successful as the season winds down, last night's six inning, two run effort inclusive. I've been in the frame of mind that he'll be sticking in Tulsa at least to start 2009 partly due to a numbers crunch up the line (Hirsh, Reynolds, Morales and a pair of usual Towers/Konerko type suspects) but Hynick's recent performance has me questioning that guess and at least a bit hopeful we forego one of the suspects next season. It also has him retaining a relatively lofty PuRPs position that was in serious jeopardy at the beginning of the season.
At any rate, Hynick was aided by a two hit night by Christopher Nelson and a three hit night by Tony Blanco. We don't mention Blanco much as there's not much to do with a bad defense minor league journeyman bat except for expressing gratitude for the exceptional services he's rendered to the organization this season. I really wish him well and hope some team gives him another MLB cup o' joe at some point.
Modesto: W 6-2
What can you say about Jhoulys Chacin that hasn't been already said? The machine just keeps on churning out the wins, number 18 on the season after putting up five more scoreless innings last night. The three hit performance with only two K's may help put to rest some of those thoughts that he does too much to avoid contact as well. Jason Van Kooten doubled and homered and Michael Paulk homered and singled in Modesto's victory.
Asheville: W 12-8
The Tourists raced out of the gate and gave Christian Friedrich plenty of help in his debut with the team. A seven inning first helped mitigate some shakiness by our first rounder, who walked four and allowed four hits and three runs in four innings. If his experience in Tri-City is any omen, than he should be rolling by the time the season ends and he hits Instructs. Mike Mitchell and Lars Davis each had three hits, David Christensen two in the win.
Tri-City: L 3-8
Chris Vasami and Leonardo Reyes each had three hits. I mentioned yesterday that I'm still high on Reyes despite a weak overall line, his August gives a good indication why: .281/.338/.516. If I find an opening down on my PuRPs list, he'd definitely be considered.
Casper: W 14-7, W 12-9
Somebody who's not going to be considered for my list is Jose Gonzalez, but I'm going to be certain to mention what a great day he had yesterday, going eight for nine with a pair of doubles and a homerun in the two seven inning games of a double header. Along with the homerun he hit against Great Falls earlier in the week, the performance amounts to a wake-up call to me. Right now it's nothing more than that, but I will be looking to see what he can do to build off this. Sometimes nothing comes after performances like this (Pedro Strop had week like that when he was still an infielder in the system with Tri-City) and sometimes the players seem to use days/weeks like this as a springboard to better things. We'll just wait and see what Gonzalez does with this.
One reason to remain a bit skeptical is that yesterday was one of those days where anybody who held a bat turned into Albert Pujols. Typically separation of the haves from the have-nots only comes for the players that have big days in both fat and lean times. Anyway, Delta Cleary had two homeruns, one in each game, and Zack Murry and Shane Lowe also homered in the second game. Cleary added a triple and Murry a double in that later game while Orlando Sandoval and Maikol Gonzalez each had two doubles in the early contest. In further evidence that something was in the air or ball yesterday, Kurt Yacko gave up a pair of homeruns in his one inning of work, doubling the number he'd put up in 22 innings prior to that.