Only Rome and Mississippi had games last night with both teams coming away losers.  However, there was good news as Cole Rohrbough made his season debut last night with Rome and didn’t show any signs of rust.  He pitched 4 shutout relief innings, allowed 3 hits and struck out 6 while walking none.  Jason Heyward added 2 hits in 5 at-bats for Rome, raising his average to .329.

Dan Webb, RHP, Kentucky HS: Great arm, hits 94-96 MPH. 6-3, 205, good athlete. Secondary pitches and control are below average and he’s somewhat raw overall. Seems like the kind of moldable pitcher with upside that would interest someone like the Braves or Dodgers. I don’t see him lasting long enough to get to Atlanta, but what about the Dodgers at 15?

Zeke Spruill, RHP, Georgia HS: 6-4, 190, projectable, already works in the low 90s and has some promise with his curve and changeup. Like most of these guys he’s fairly raw, but would fit late in the first round or the supplemental round. Seems like a logical fit for the Braves. The Braves don’t pick until 40 however…will Spruill still be there? If not, another high school Georgia pitcher named Michael Palazzone has a very good arm and would slot in well for Atlanta there.

So there’s three guys right there that are already being mentioned for Atlanta with their first pick. High school pitchers from Georgia are always a good bet to be selected by Atlanta. However, it will be interesting to see if they stick with pitching, given their wealth of pitching already in the low minors. My guess is they probably will given the fact that they picked position players Jason Heyward, Jon Gilmore, and Freddie Freeman early last year so they are due to take some young, projectable pitchers.

Baseball America came out with this week’s hotsheet and Heyward has worked his way from the hotlist two weeks ago, to the not-hot list last week, and back to the hot list this week. His power is showing up too as he slugged .700 last week.

His teamate, however, joined the not-hot list thanks in part to his 65 strikeouts in 39 games. I am talking about Cody Johnson. I think Jeff Francouer could actually teach this guy a thing or two about being patient. His talent is obvious but his holes are already being exposed and he’s not even to high-A yet.

Tommy Hanson got the call up to AA Mississippi and made it a memorable one as he allowed only 1 run in 6.1 innings to get the win 2-1. He struck out 7 and walked 4 (including 2 in the 7th before being pulled) while allowing 5 hits in his 6.1 innings. Basically, he picked up right where he left off in Myrtle Beach. It’s particularly impressive given the fact that the jump from A+ to AA is probably the most significant jump a player will make, not the mention that fact that Myrtle Beach is such a pitchers haven. Of course it’s just one game but there was a lot to like in that one game from Hanson.

• Not to be outdone, Deunte Heath was one strike away from a complete game no-hitter (only 7 innings because of a double-header) before allowing a single. That was the only hit he would allow as the Pelicans cruised 6-1.

• Charlie Morton got into the pitching action today as well with 7 more strong innings for Richmond. He struck out 7 and walked 2 while allowing 1 run lowering his ERA to 1.69. Personally I think Thursday would be a good time for his major league debut with Chuck James scheduled to start in Philly. Fly ball pitchers don’t work well at that ballpark. But if that doesn’t happen, it should happen soon enough because he doesn’t have a lot left to prove in AAA.

• Brandon Jones went 4-5 with a home run and raised his batting average to .280.

• Kala Ka’aihue was 1-3 with a run and an RBI. He’s been hitting noticeably better and has his average up to .212 now.

Mississippi (AA):
Mississippi went 1-2 this weekend but the good news is that Kala Ka’aihue continued to show some progress. He went 3-11 with another homer and drew 3 walks. His average has now creeped up to .196. The bad news is stud relief prospects Kris Medlen and Sung Ki Jung got lit up on Saturday. Medlen gave up 3 hits and 3 runs in an inning of work while Jung was only able to record 2 outs while allowing 5 runs (3 earned). Jason Perry once again lead the offense with 5 hits and 5 RBI including his 8th home run of the season.

Myrtle Beach (A+):
The Pelican continued their winning ways with a weekend sweep thanks to some excellent pitching. Ryne Reynoso had another succesfful start on Friday despite being limited to 4 innings. Chris Vines continued his good work as well this year with 4.1 solid innings yesterday. Kevin Gunderson finished both games on Friday and Saturday while Nick Fellman stepped in for the save on Sunday. Bret Butts recorded the win yesterday with 3.2 shutout innings in relief of Vines.

Rome (A-):
Rome split 1-1 this weekend with Chad Rodgers taking another loss on Friday and Jose Ortegano getting his first win this year on Saturday. Ortegano went 7 and allowed only 1 run while striking out 4. Cory Gearrin loaded the bases in the 9th but Benny Pruneda bailed him out by coming in and striking out the side to preserve the 6-1 win. Freddie Freeman stayed hot with 4 hits including 2 doubles and a homer to lead the offense.

Jason Heyward Watch: 4-7, 3 R, 2 2B’s, HR, 2 RBI, 2 BB’s, .319 BA

• Tommy Hanson was actually dropped from the list this week for some reason but he did get special mention as he has allowed 1 hit or fewer in 4 of his 7 starts.
• Jason Heyward was also dropped from the hot list this week and even made an appearance on the not hot list after his .185 batting average last week. But they did have this to say however:

The silver lining was that three of the five hits he had this week went for extra bases. Don’t expect to see his name in this spot too often.

• Charlie Morton was singled out in the “Helium Watch” segment because of his quick rise to prospect status. He wasn’t even in their prospect handbook the past two seasons but he is now a legitimate top pitching prospect in the upper levels. They called his low 90’s fastball and curveball combination “murderous.”

Charlie Morton picked a good day to have one of his best outings of the season. I’m not sure why Scott Williamson started and he came on in relief but he ended up pitching 7.1 scoreless innings as Richmond failed to come back from an early 2-run deficit to lose 2-1. It’s a good day because Frank Wren may very well be looking to Richmond for another starter with both Jo-Jo Reyes and Buddy Carlyle leaving yesterday’s game with injuries. The good news is neither of the injuries involved arms or shoulders, but it’s not known how long they will be out. Back to Morton, he didn’t walk anyone and struck out 6 while lowering his ERA to 1.76. It’s hard to see him sticking in Richmond the entire year with all of the our pitchers going down like they are.

• Kala Ka’aihue hit his first home run in AA and it only took him 219 at-bats! His BB% is up this year and his K% is down but he’s still got a lot of work to do on his .188/.331/.287 batting line.
• Freddie Freeman went 1-3 yesterday and has been on a roll lately to get his average up to .295. I’d still like to see some more of that power everyone talked about when we drafted him. He has 1 homer this year and has actually improved his slugging from .378 last year to .426.

The story of the day was definitely Tommy Hanson again. He mowed down the opposition with 6 more terrific innings of work, allowing 1 run on only 1 hits and 1 walk to go with 7 strikeouts. He actually raised his ERA to 0.90 and as a sparkling 49/11 K/BB ratio in 40 innings pitched. The Braves probably want to leave him in Myrtle Beach for half the season but he’s making it hard for them to leave him there as he continues to make high-A batters look foolish.

Another guy who’s been hot lately is Myrtle Beach shortstop Brandon Hicks. He’s batting .381 with 2 home runs so far in May and is now hitting .292/.354/.611 in his first taste of high-A ball. His power is up so far but his walks are down but he actually drew more walks than strikeouts last year so I’m expecting his walks to increase as he becomes more comfortable.

Jason Heyward Watch: 2-3, R, .319/.359/.445

Jo-Jo Reyes took the mound for Richmond looking to continue his strong start last night. He gave up 2 runs in the first and then was pulled after 2 innings of work. My first thought was that we had lost yet another pitcher to injury but there was no apparent signs of an injury so it has to be related to Smoltz being put on the DL. Reyes may very well become a member of the starting rotation in Atlanta for now. He really deserves it and I think he’ll be much better than he was last year now that he tweaked his mechanics to improve his control. Francisley Bueno relieved Reyes and pitched pretty well but Richmond failed to score in a 4-0 defeat. Phil Stockman threw 1.2 shutout innings to finish the game and lowered his ERA to 1.17. We could see him in the majors sometime as well if Soriano doesn’t come back soon and Moylan has to go under the knife.

• Brandon Hicks drove in 3 runs and Tyler Flowers had 4 hits (3 doubles) to lead Myrtle Beach to another victory.

• Chad Rodgers didn’t allow a run in the 3 innings he pitched although he did allow 3 hits and 4 walks, but he struck out 5 and was able to work out of the trouble to lower his ERA to 4.50.

Monday brought victories by all the teams playing (Rome was off) but there really isn’t a whole lot to report other than that. Charlie Morton started for Richmond and pitched effectively but couldn’t get the last out of the 5th, mainly due to his 5 walks. He only allowed 2 hits and 1 run while striking out 5 so the result was good but his control was off. In 5 starts he has a 2.36 ERA and 7.74 K/9 so far and could be called on in Atlanta given the suddenly fragile state of the pitching staff.

It’s probably also worth noting that Ryne Reynoso continued his successful transtion from the bullpen last year to the starting rotation this year with 6 strong innings for Myrtle Beach. He has a 3.75 ERA this year and an impressive 27/5 K/BB ratio in 24 innings.

AA:
Mississippi lost 2 of 3 and there really isn’t a lot going on here. Kala Ka’aihue and Kris Medlen are really the only top prospects here and Medlen is holding his own but Ka’aihue is batting .186. Jason Perry, on the other hand, has hit 4 home runs now in only 8 games since joining Mississippi from the Tigers organization.

A+:
Duente Heath and Kyle Cofield turned in solid starts for the Pelicans as they split 2 games with Salem over the weekend. Kevin Gunderson picked up his 5th in 5 chances on Sunday.

A-:
The starting pitching for Rome continues to impress but they were only able to pull out 1 victory in 3 games. Jeff Locke did not allow an earned run in 6 innings on Friday only to see Thomas Palica blow the lead. Scott Diamond and Edgar Osuna combined for 8 shutout innings on Saturday for their only win. Eric Barrett was solid on Sunday but the offense didn’t back him up in a 4-2 loss. The best news of the weekend for Rome is shown below.

Jason Heyward Watch: 6-11, 2 HR’s, 6 RBI .337 BA (3 games)