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Thursday's games
Triple-A: Albuquerque Isotopes (61-79)
Albuquerque 4, Fresno 3
W: Owens (2-5, 4.84); L: Straily (10-9, 4.77); SV: Matzek (1)
"The Albuquerque Isotopes (61-79) split a four-game series against the Fresno Grizzlies (81-57) Thursday night at Chukchansi Park in Fresno, CA, winning the finale of a four-game series 4-3"
Corey Dickerson had two hits, giving him at least one hit in all six of his rehab starts. It's indicative of where Rockies fans heads are at when you lose a mid-20s guy with a .930 OPS for 3/4 of the season and it barely registers.
In one of the more encouraging outcomes of the game, Tyler Matzek worked a two inning save, throwing 19 of his 28 pitches for strikes. He struck out three and didn't walk a batter. The solo shot that Matzek allowed was just the second hit he has allowed in 9 and 1/3 innings since returning on August 14th. It was also just his second run allowed despite issuing five walks in that stretch.
Double-A: New Britain Rock Cats (67-69)
New Britain 8, Trenton 6
W: Hoffman (2-2, 2.81); L: Ruth (9-5, 3.20); SV: Estevez, C (12)
"The New Britain Rock Cats completed a sweep of the Thunder with an 8-6 decision on Thursday night at ARM & HAMMER Park."
Jeff Hoffman worked around three walks in his five innings of work by collecting eight ground outs and three strikeouts. Hoffman will finish his Rockies debut season having pitched 36 and 1/3 innings in his seven starts for New Britain, striking out 29 and walking 10 and allowing a 3.22 ERA in the process. For the season, the 22 year-old has pitched 105 innings of 3.03 ERA baseball in his pro debut, given that he is just now breaking past the 18 months it usually takes to rebound from Tommy John surgery, the fact that his velocity and most of his control has returned certainly bodes well for the Rockies in coming years.
Class A Advanced: Modesto Nuts (66-70)
San Jose 8, Modesto 2
W: Reyes, Jo (5-6, 5.82); L: Wade (8-9, 3.96)
"Once again, the Modesto Nuts offense was quiet in an 8-2 loss to the San Jose Giants on Thursday night at Municipal Stadium.
With the Ports victory on Thursday and the Nuts loss, the Nuts are officially eliminated from playoff contention.
Jose Reyes (W, 5-6) retired the first eleven he faced on his way to a seven-inning, one-run performance for the Giants (72-64; 42-24). Reyes allowed just a RBI double to Ashley Graeter while striking out seven and walking none"
As if you needed one more reason to be mad at Jose Reyes, amirite? The Nuts season has been, on the whole, disappointing, despite some very encouraging seasons from the guys you really wanted to see one from. Especially PuRPs Ryan McMahon (he had two doubles in this one), Raimel Tapia, Jordan Patterson, and the true breakout Antonio Senzatela. One bright spot in last night's game was 2014 draftee and Craig Schlitter, who struck out three in his High-A debut. The right hander has 54 innings completed in his pro career, has struck out 61, and walked 13 in that time with an overall 2.08 ERA.
Class A: Asheville Tourists (70-65)
Asheville 7, Greensboro 6
W: Bello, Y (5-4, 3.26); L: Alvis (3-6, 4.83); SV: Michalec (30)
"The Asheville Tourists had to overcome a pair of deficits on Thursday night when facing the Greensboro Grasshoppers. Despite trailing by multiple runs on two separate occasions, the Tourists put together just enough offense to end up with a 7-6 win over the Grasshoppers."
If the Tourists had pulled Jesus Tinoco after five innings, this would have been another strong start for the youngster. At that point, he had allowed two earned runs on seven hits with eight strikeouts and one walk. Unfortunately, the three batter sequence that started off the sixth went single, homer, dinger, after which he gave way to Yoely Bello. Tinoco gave up as many runs in the sixth inning as he had allowed in his first six starts in Asheville. All told, Tinoco wraps up his Rockies debut with 40 innings over seven starts with 37 strikeouts to just eight walks.
Dom Nunez hit his 12th home run of the season, a grand-slam ,in the fourth inning. All of Nunez's home runs came in a second half, when he hit .333/.439/.609. Nunez also hit 17 doubles in that stretch, but perhaps most impressively, he walked 33 times to just 22 strikeouts.
Class A Short-Season: Boise Hawks (29-44)
Hillsboro 12, Boise 0
W: Hernandez, C (6-3, 2.32); L: McCormick (1-2, 4.09)
"The Hops scored early and often on Thursday night as they shutdown the Hawks bats and took the final game of the series by score of 12-0."
Dansby Swanson had a five hit night for his first time as a pro, but there wasn't a lot to be said otherwise about this game. The Hawks were just beaten in every aspect of this one, being out hit 16 to three, and committing four errors on the way to letting the 12-to-0 game get out of hand.
Rookie: Grand Junction Rockies (31-40)
Grand Junction 16, Ogden 8
W: Crawford (2-0, 5.81); L: Brown (1-1, 3.08)
"Bobby Stahel set the tone for the Grand Junction Rockies on Thursday night at Lindquist Field when he homered on the game's first pitch in a 16-8 win over the Ogden Raptors.
Stahel's third home run of the season started a 5-run first inning for the Rockies, who batted around in the inning. Collin Ferguson started his big night with an RBI double after Mylz Jones reached on an error. The inning was capped off by Chris Keck's two out, two run double."
So a day after showing off in center-field, Bobby Stahel decided to put on a show with the lumber. Fellow college draftee Collin Ferguson raised his Grand Junction line to .359/.481/.617, and his three game September line to .769/.786/1.000, with a five hit night. Peter Lambert has to be pretty happy to lead all Grand Junction starting pitchers in ERA (3.45) and K/9 (7.8) as an 18 year-old making his pro debut against hitters who are on average around three years older.
Saturday's probables
Triple-A Albuquerque: Boone Whiting
Double-A New Britain: Ryan Carpenter
High-A Modesto: Antonio Senzatela
Low-A Asheville: Sam Howard
Short Season-A Boise: Jack Wynkoop
Rookie Grand Junction: TBD