Black Sunday!

On a day when Reading, Clearwater and Lakewood all lost their games, let me sift through the rubble looking for silver linings.

In Reading, the R-Phils winnings ways were ended by New Hampshire, 7-4. Gus Milner had a double in 4 at bats to extend a modest hitting streak to 8 games. Over that span, Gus is hitting .448 (13 for 29) with 5 doubles, a home runs and 5 RBI. Neil Sellers was 3 for 3 with a walk to up his average to .314.

In St. Lucie, the Threshers managed just 5 hits, losing to the Mets 6-0, with no one getting multiple hits. Dominic Brown and Matt Rizzotti had doubles, Fidel Hernandez, Joel Naughton and Cody Overbeck singles. Walter Tejeda pitched 2 innings, allowing 1 run on 2 hits, and is posting a 1.29 ERA in 6 games since his promotion.

In Greensboro, the BlueClaws led 4-0, 5-1 and 7-3, but fell to the Grasshoppers, 8-7. Although it felt like being punched in the gut by Mike Tyson, there were some good signs. Anthony Gose stole 4 bases to increase his total to an amazing 35. Harold Garcia and Travis D'Arnaud homered, for D'Arnaud his second in 2 days, and Moose Mattair had 3 hits and a walk. Moose is 5 for 8 in the series.

With the exception of Jacob Diekman the pitching was good, and Diekman had not pitched in 9 days, so the rust he showed was almost understandable. I will spare you the numbers, take it from me, it was ugly!

The IronPigs did win, topping Rochester 5-1. Jeremy Slayden had 2 more hits after having his 6 game streak stopped Saturday and is 9 for 29 (.313) the last 8 games.

The news was no better in Colorado Springs as Andrew Baldwin was roughed up by the SkySox. Baldwin gave up 7 earned runs on 9 hits and 3 walks in 5.2 innings, to fall to 3-3, 4.95 on the year for Tacoma. In Oklahoma City, Greg Golson had a triple and an RBI in the RedHawks' 8-3 loss to Albuquerque, and Chris Roberson had a single, a walk and scored a run for Reno in their 8-3 loss at Salt Lake City.

Ok, that's enough pain for 1 day, lets flip the calendar over and start fresh tonight.