A bit of a minor league update, with the details for a few players that haven't been mentioned in detail for a while:

West Virginia:

Just a guy named Rudy and a lot of young potential here...

Rudy Owens - First and foremost, the guy nobody thought about before this year. Owens pitched another six innings of one-run ball tonight. He now has posted an absolutely absurd 1.17 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, and 73:7 K/BB in 77 IP since his last messy start on May 2nd. That's thirteen straight starts where damn near nobody has touched him. What is he possibly gaining from mowing through the same hitters over and over again? I remember there being discussion of Owens' promotion from West Virginia to Lynchburg mirroring Lincoln's move to Indy...so what, exactly, are they waiting for? They finally moved Erik Huber up a notch for a hitting performance just as impressive as Owens' pitching, and Huber is the lesser prospect.

Calvin Anderson - I'm about ready to move Calvin off my radar for a while. Since his strong April, Anderson has now posted a .263 average and .738 OPS to go with 62 K's and only 21 BB's in 209 AB's since then. He's still "only" 22, but he's got some serious work to do to be more than just a big body with some random power.

Erik Huber - Speaking of Erik, he made his debut with Lynchburg tonight and went 1-4, after spending the month of June ripping apart Sally League pitching to the tune of a .400/1.016 line. Sure, it's mitigated by his being 24 and starting the season repeating the level - which, in reality, might just make him Steve Pearce v2.0, but something is always better than nothing in my book.

Also of note: Last year's 25th round pick Brian Leach struggled in a start Thursday (he was recently inserted into the rotation), but had been strong until then, carrying a 33 inning shutout streak prior to that outing..,,,Starling Marte hasn't snagged a lot of XBH in recent days, but it's been 70 AB now and his average is still at .352...Robbie Grossman is still struggling. I'd be freaking out about his 36% K rate if he wasn't still 19...Casey Erickson, the pitching half of the Eric Hinske trade, pitched another two scoreless innings of relief tonight, giving him seven scoreless innings of relief to go with his lone six-inning start.

Lynchburg:

This team needs to make some moves in the near future. They currently carry three catchers, and while one is irrelevant driftwood, that still leaves three players to sort through if Tony Sanchez moves up before Kris Watts or Eric Fryer does. Also some pitching notes...

Kris Watts - After a miserable May, Watts started to come back in June (.286 avg, .942 OPS) and now appears to have fully rediscovered his bat (.349/.896 in July). Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Watts just celebrated his 25th birthday Wednesday, did so by going 0-for-2, and hasn't had an at-bat since.

Eric Fryer - Watts has, of course, lost those at-bats to this guy, the hitting half of the Hinske trade (how alliterative of me). Fryer still has only 13 games under his belt in our system, but he's on a nice 7-for-24 run (along with 6 BB's) in the last week, so perhaps he can make some headway soon and give us a happy problem at catcher.

Matt Hague - I know he isn't an uberprospect, but I'm not sure why nobody even mentions the poor guy's name. He finished last season hitting .321/.854 in low-A ball, and began this season at High-A. His overall line of a .301 average and .786 OPS looks rather uninteresting for a High-A player about to turn 24, but that line is in large part due to a poor first month. Since May 1st, Hague has posted a .364 average and .924 OPS including his current seven-game hit streak (11-for-31). Not saying he's the saviour, but show the kid some love.

Also of note: A shame that Chase D'Arnaud might have to pack in his season, he was performing well at the plate and in the field and may well have reached Altoona by month's end...Not sure what's going on with Jeff Locke, but he's only pitched 14 2/3 innings in his last four starts (pitch count, I suppose?)..."Mr. CWS" Justin Wilson continues to struggle, posting nine walks to only seven strikeouts in 15 1/3 IP this month: perhaps he spent some time around Duke Welker and it rubbed off...Ronald Uviedo (much to my surprise) is down in the GCL now...and (again in the something > nothing category), Bryan Morris had a start that looked like a pitcher who actually belonged in our farm system, even if it wasn't sparkling.

Altoona:

Looks like three solid prospects and a bunch of scrubs for now...

Pedro Alvarez - The boy has finally come to play. He posted his fifth multi-hit outing in his last ten games tonight, and now has his average up to .378 in July (of course, it being Pedro, I don't need to tell you his OBP/SLG/OPS are also huge). He'll probably finish the year at Altoona, but if he keeps this up we can probably ease up on that worrying we were doing up through Memorial Day.

Jose Tabata - The second member of the triumverate has also had a strong July, posting a .328/.823 line that has brought him up to a .279 average and .725 OPS. There's still not a lot of power, but he is still getting on base (through both hits and walks) and he still isn't 21 yet.

Gorkys Hernandez - His numbers are still a small sample size, so I'm not going to worry too much about Gorkys' struggles. He's a mess against lefties and is still striking out a bit too much, which makes me wonder if he's a bit of Tabata Lite, offensively speaking.

Also of note (see how quickly I got here?): Brian Friday's bat has disappeared completely...Yoslan Herrera pitched seven scoreless innings Thursday, if anybody cares...Jim Negrych may have finally come out of whatever offensive dungeon he's been in, posting a .358/.1.009 line thusfar in July after riding the Mendoza line in May and June...Kyle Bloom has a 2.60 ERA in eight starts since June 1st - and the peripherals of...well, Herrera...Derek Hankins finally returned from the DL at the beginning of June, with very mixed results so far.

Indianapolis:

Lincoln and Lastings and offense, oh my!

Brad Lincoln - Tonight Lincoln continued the struggles he's experienced since the quality start he made in his first AAA outing, giving up five runs on nine hits in five innings while only striking out one batter. Given the performance he put on at Altoona this year, I still have faith this is merely a period of adjustment for him, but that faith may waver if these struggles continue into next month.

Lastings Milledge - Looks like the headcase we got from Washington might actually be good at this hitting thing. Milledge posted his fifth multi-hit game in seven Indian appearances and is now 13-for-25 with the Bucs' AAA affiliate. During tonight's game, Greg Brown also mentioned that, in a pre-game radio inteview last night, he was grateful to our organization for providing him structure that he had not been given with the Mets or Nats. It would be nice to see him hit for some power, and I'm curious what mechanical flaws the staff found that needed fixing while he spends (at least) the rest of this month in Indy, but I'm excited for his arrival.

Also of note: Tom Gorzelanny has a 1.04 ERA and 34:12 K/BB in 34 2/3 IP since returning to AAA... Daniel McCutchen has ceased his bad longball habit (only one in his last eight starts) but still appears to be a bit of a Jeff Karstens clone... I'm beginning to doubt if we'll ever see Eric Hacker in a Pirate uniform... Bryan Myrow might be old roster filler, but .290/.900 roster filler is better than, oh, say Kent Sakamoto... knock Steve Pearce all you want, but he's got a .286 average, .879 OPS and 44:33 K/BB ratio at AAA - there's nothing he can do about MLB performance when the team won't give him regular at-bats.

Also a final note: I'm planning a round-trip at the end of the minor league season (Aug 26-31st...ish) that, timed accurately, will allow for three games (Altoona, then State College, then West Virginia) in one weekend, if there are any folks out there who would like to make it a group effort.