Minor League Roundup: Evan Chambers Struggling For Bradenton

Indianapolis beat Durham, 9-6. Justin Wilson took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, but had five walks. (The six runs were allowed by Justin Thomas and Blaine Boyer late in the game.) John Bowker and Matt Hague provided most of the offense, with seven hits between them, four for extra bases. Pat was there and has a full recap.

Altoona won 7-2 against Erie despite being out-hit 15-6. Basically, the Curve did all its damage in the sixth inning and only managed one hit and one walk in the other seven innings. Aaron Thompson pitched five innings and allowed nine hits and two runs.

Bradenton beat Tampa, 6-2. Elevys Gonzalez went 3-for-3 with a walk and is now hitting .333/.409/.458. Jarek Cunningham went 2-for-5 with a triple and now has 23 extra-base hits in his first 30 games. Quinton Miller pitched five innings and allowed two runs. That's certainly an improvement over most of his starts recently, but he still only had one strikeout. He has 10 so far in his first 29.1 innings this year. Evan Chambers went 0-for-4 with a walk and three strikeouts. He's really off to a miserable start, despite being in the top 10 in the Florida State League in walks. He has no homers yet and is hitting for an even lower average (.187) than last year, perhaps because the more advanced pitchers in the FSL are making fewer mistakes to him. We'll see if this is a sample-size issue, but my guess at this point would be that there's at least some signal in there - it comes as no surprise to me that a player with his combination of skills is struggling at a higher level.

West Virginia lost to Charleston, 5-4. Zack Dodson pitched 5.2 innings and allowed three runs, two earned, while striking out four and walking none. He allowed two homers, but they were his first two of the season. Gift Ngoepe went 3-for-5 and is now hitting .316/.373/.487.