I said this last week after Tyler Skaggs' previous start in Reno, but after last night's performance it bears repeating. Tyler Skaggs is ready for the big leagues. He's eating up the PCL in ways pitchers aren't supposed to be able to eat up the PCL. All he did last night was throw 7 shutout innings on 2 hits and 3 walks while striking out 9. What else does he need to do? He has out-pitched Bauer by a considerable margin and he's even out-pitched our latest stellar call-up Patrick Corbin. Let's see what happens tonight with Saunders against Halladay, but if Saunders' puts up another mediocre or uneven performance it will be hard to understand how they don't figure out how to get Skaggs into the rotation for the stretch run. In his last 34+ innings he's allowed exactly 3 earned runs. But Skaggs wasn't the only organizational pitcher to shine yesterday. Derek Eitel was solid for Mobile, Willy Paredes was terrific for Visalia, Archie Bradley had a very good outing for South Bend, Alexander Carreras was really good for Yakima, Yoimer Camacho was good for Missoula, and Geordy Parra was pretty solid for the AZL Dbacks. That's 7 starts and 7 plus performances. We have some good pitchers in our minors, folks, even some you've never heard of.
Snake Stars
3 Stars: Tyler Skaggs, Reno 7 IP, 2 H, 3 BB, 9 K, 0 ER, W (4-1)
2 Stars: Willy Paredes, Visalia 7 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 ER, W (2-1)
1 Star: Archie Bradley, South Bend 5 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 8 K, 2 ER, W (9-5)
0 Stars: Evan Marshall, Mobile 1 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 2 ER, BS (3)
Game summaries after the jump.
Triple A: Reno 5 @ Omaha 3. Tyler Skaggs led the way with 7 shutout innings and the offense did enough to get the win. A.J. Pollock led the way with 3 hits and a stolen base. Adam Eaton had a pair of hits and an RBI and Mike Jacobs hit his 13th home run of the season.
Double A: Mobile 4 @ Birmingham 5. There's a bad vibe going on in Mobile right now as they're having trouble finding ways to win. They led 4-2 entering the 9th but Evan Marshall couldn't close it out allow the tying runs on 2 walks and 2 hits. The game went to the 12th when a hit, a balk, a sacrifice and a sacrifice fly off Eric Smith ended it. Alfredo Marte had a double, a triple and an RBI in his first good offensive game in a while. Chris Owings had two singles in 6 at bats. Matt Davidson played and went 0 for 4 with 2 walks.
High A: Visalia 7 Stockton 1. The Rawhide played another good all-around game led by the pitching of Willy Paredes, He threw 7 strong innings allowing 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks with 4 strikeouts. Paredes really needed that one as he couldn't get out of the 2nd inning in his last start. Kyle Winkler pitched 2 innings of shutout relief. Keon Broxton had 3 hits with an RBI, Michael Freeman had 2 hits with a double and an RBI, and Raoul Torres had 2 hits and 2 RBI.
Low A: South Bend 3 Fort Wayne 2. Archie Bradley had another good outing highlighted by just 1 walk, to the first batter of the game. That runner scored on consecutive singles, but Bradley got out of it striking out the next two. He gave up another run in the second on 2 singles and a wild pitch. He settled down after that allowing just 1 more hit over the next 3 innings. Eric Groff paced the offense with a 2-run double in the 2nd, one of his 2 hits. Kerry Jenkins and Ryan Court chipped in with a pair of singles each.
Short Season A: Yakima 6 @ Tri-City 2. Alexander Carreras had one of his best outings of the year with 6 innings of 1-run ball where he allowed just 5 hits and a walk to earn the victory.The always solid Yakima bullpen pitched the final 3 frames yielding a meaningless run in the 9th. Kevin Medrano had 3 hits for the second consecutive game that included a triple and an RBI. The Bears had 5 triples in the game (I wonder if that's some kind of record?) Two of the triples came from Michael Lang and the others came from Yogey Perez-Ramos and Joseph Loftus.
Rookie: Missoula 5 @ Great Falls 4. The Osprey won this nail-biter behind a good outing from Yoimer Camacho who went 6 innings allowing 2 runs on 4 hits and a walk while striking out 7. The bullpen got a little dicey but Vince Spilker eventually closed it out for his first professional save. SS Pedro Ruiz was the offensive star going 4 for 4 with a walk, 2 runs scored and a stolen base (his 16th) out of the leadoff spot. Breland Almadova added 2 singles and 2 RBI.
AZL Rookie: Dbacks 5 Cubs 7. Starter Geordy Parra had a fairly solid performance but it wasn't nearly enough as the offense couldn't get it going until late. The game was never close but it got interesting in the bottom of the 9th when the Dbacks scored 5 to close the gap to 7-5. Backup catcher Anderson Bolivar his a grand slam in that 9th inning but the next batter flew out to end it.