memphis got anthony reyes off the hook with a 5-run rally in the bottom of the 9th to pull a 7-6 victory out of the fire. reyes had been in line for the loss after yielding a tie-breaking solo homer with two outs in the 6th. his line for the evening: 6 inn, 5 hits, 3 earned, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts; only 3 groundball outs, vs 4 flyouts and 2 infield popups. in all he threw 96 pitches, 66 for strikes; he induced 10 swinging strikes and a whopping 25 foul balls.
there are several interesting comments about the start in the thread for yesterday's pm post (scroll down). among other things, i learned there that walt jocketty attended the game at memphis last night. that's got to mean something, insofar as a) it was reyes' first appearance in 10 days, and b) so much gab about reyes' velocity, mechanics, and health has swirled around this week. here's one theory that might explain walter's attendance: he wanted to know if reyes is ready to step into the big-league rotation to fill a vacancy created by a trade. such speculation doesn't require that a trade be imminent; presumably walt would want/need to evaluate his rotation coverage on an ongoing basis, even if he doesn't have a deal sitting on the table today.
here's another theory: jocketty has gotten an appealing offer for reyes himself, and wanted to lay eyes on the pitcher to assess the value of what he'd be giving up in the deal.
or maybe it doesn't have anything at all to do with a trade; maybe jocketty simply wanted to see how well reyes is throwing, and whether the alterations to his mechanics are taking.
maybe it doesn't have to do with reyes at all; maybe walt just wanted to see how bigbie and spivey are coming along. . . . no, really; that wasn't meant to be a joke. bigbie left the game after the 3d inning, having gone 0 for 2; injured? his rehab batting average is .167, and he has struck out in 13 of 30 at-bats -- with 0 extra-base hits. no explanation given for his early exit. junior spivey, playing in front of the gm, went 0 for 6 with 3 strikeouts; he also committed an error, his 5th (projects to ~25 errors in a full season) and made a baserunning miscue, getting himself doubled off 2d base on a popup with the sacks jammed and one out in the 8th inning. spivey's batting average at memphis is now .179, and he's "slugging" .212. at the time spivey was signed, i thought it was easily jocketty's best move of the off-season; it just didn't work out.
before we stray too far from the subject of farm-system arms, john sickels had this to say yesterday about double-a starter chris lambert, the cards' #1 pick from the 2004 draft:
you might've missed this: day before yesterday, reggie sanders completed half his quest to join the 300-300 club, getting his 300th career steal. his career hr total stands at 296; he has hit 4 this season, now equaled by encarnacion. still outslugging juan by 100 points, though . . . . the royals have called up kerry robinson and put him straight into the starting lineup, batting leadoff and playing center. he's 4 for 13 (.308) after three games . . . .matt morris lost his 2d game yesterday; got clubbed early, toughed it out for 7 innings. his era stands at 5.18 . . . and ray king took the loss for colorado last night. he has allowed 17 baserunners in in 9.1 innings, only struck out 2 guys. . . . .