BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Daily Dish: April 19

The White Sox depleted their lefthanded pitching depth in the Jim Thome trade, sending Gio Gonzalez and Daniel Haigwood to the Phillies in the deal along with big league center fielder Aaron Rowand. While Gonzalez tossed his second scoreless start of the young season last week for Double-A Reading, Sox lefty Tyler Lumsden, whom the club drafted four spots before it took Gonzalez in 2004, has been just as good.

Lumsden gave up his first runs of the season last night for Double-A Birmingham, giving up two runs in five innings during a 4-3, 10-inning victory against Tennessee. The 22-year-old Clemson alumnus, the 34th overall pick in '04, had started the season with 14 scoreless innings before giving up his first run in the fourth inning Tuesday night. It's his first action at Double-A after he pitched 39 innings after signing in 2004 with high Class A Winston-Salem.

Lumsden missed all of 2005 with shoulder surgery on his labrum. He was throwing on the side at Winston-Salem while rehabbing. Barons manager Chris Cron piloted the Warthogs last season and thought Lumsden could have helped then, but understood why the organization wanted to be careful with him. Now he finally has Lumsden in his rotation, along with prospects Lance Broadway, Ray Liotta, Corwin Malone and Ryan Rodriguez.

"He's sitting at 90-92 mph right now with his fastball, and that's hard," Cron said after Lumsden's second start, a 2-0 victory against Huntsville. "Then he's got this sneaky smooth, slow delivery, and his fastball just gets on you quick. His curveball is a power curveball and he's throwing it for strikes; it's a good pitch.

"The kid has a great demeanor; he doesn't force anything and he has no fear. He just goes out and competes. We wouldn't have put him (in Double-A) if we didn't think he could handle it."

So far, Lumsden's handling it just fine.

--JOHN MANUEL

DISH PIECES

• Red Sox No. 4 prospect Dustin Pedroia was back in the Triple-A Pawtucket lineup after missing the first two weeks of the season while recovering from a strained shoulder. Just as noteworthy was the position he played: shortstop.

Drafted as a shortstop, Pedroia had shifted to second base last season when he teamed up with Hanley Ramirez at Double-A Portland. But with Ramirez now starting at shortstop for the Marlins, Pedroia is undisputedly the top middle infield prospect in the Red Sox system.

"We see him as a middle infielder at the next level and feel he can play both shortstop and second base effectively," farm director Mike Hazen said. "We will play him at both positions in Triple-A for right now."

• Cubs righthander Carlos Marmol continued his domination at Double-A West Tenn on Tuesday, though it was tough to determine where he was better--on the mound or at the plate. Marmol allowed his first earned run in 17 innings in the 12-1 Diamond Jaxx win, tossing 5 1/3 innings. He gave up five hits, walked two and struck out seven.

But it was at the plate where Marmol, 23, was perhaps even better. A converted infielder, Marmol batted .268 in 523 at-bats (mostly in Rookie ball) before moving to the mound. Still, the Dominican native was surprised when he went 3-for-3 with a pair of doubles and a homer. "I don't know where that came from," Marmol told the Jackson (Tenn.) Sun. "I'm glad they were fastballs because that's just about the only thing I can hit."

• Not even a disruption in his usual routine could derail Cubs righthander Sean Gallagher, who entered yesterday's game against St. Lucie on a roll, having thrown 12 shutout innings with 12 strikeouts and just two walks in his first two starts of the year. But yesterday was different, because the game started at 10:35 a.m. for an "Education Day" promotion at high Class A Daytona's Jackie Robinson Ballpark.

"I got to sleep real early (Monday) night knowing I had to be up real early (Tuesday) morning," Gallagher told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. "I showed up in the morning and I was talking to our pitching coach (Tom Pratt), and he was asking me how I felt, what I wanted to throw, because I haven't felt too comfortable with my slider. But in the bullpen I felt like I had (the slider). I felt like I had everything."

It showed. Gallagher struck out 10 without issuing a walk and allowing just three hits in seven innings of work to pick up his first win of the year. He gave up an unearned run in the first inning and a solo homer in the second, but allowed just one more hit the rest of the way.

This is the second straight year Gallagher has been red-hot coming out of the gate. Last year at low Class A Peoria, the 2004 12th-round pick did not allow an earned run in his first six starts (including a no-hitter). Gallagher finished 14-5, 2.71, but was much less effective in the second half of the season. After going 8-2, 1.43 over the first three months, Gallagher went 6-3, 4.97 in July and August. He appears to be back to top form early this year, but it remains to be seen if he can do it for a full season, particularly since a promotion to Double-A might not be too far away.

• To this point, Kyle Kendrick's career has been a disappointing one. Though he had a football scholarship to Washington State, Kendrick signed with the Phillies in 2003 as a seventh-rounder.

Three years later, he has yet to make it out of low Class A, but he put together one of the finest starts of his career last night as he shut down a Greensboro lineup that has probably the deepest lineup in the South Atlantic League.

In eight innings, the righthander allowed no runs on two hits and a walk while striking out 12.

"He said tonight he was mentally and physically tired," pitching coach Ken Schrenk told the Asbury Park Press. "That tells you he was working on every pitch. That shows how much he has grown."

Kendrick's development stalled because he had yet to develop a reliable breaking ball. He threw a loopy breaking pitch that lacked bite and he was unable to put hitters away when he got ahead with his lively fastball that sits in the low 90s.

After beginning the 2005 campaign in Lakewood, the Phillies sent him to short-season Batavia to learn a slider.

"Last year did a lot for my confidence," Kendrick told the paper. "I ended up at Batavia, but I got plenty of chances to pitch. I needed to develop an out pitch, and I did."

The 21-year-old was lights out from the start as he fanned the first six hitters, and it was only his 100-pitch limit that prevented him from completing the game. The progress of his slider will be something to watch this season as Kendrick tries to work his way out of Class A.

QUICK HITS

• Orioles outfielder Jeff Fiorentino has missed six straight games at Double-A Bowie with a sprained ankle. Fiorentino, a third-round pick out of Florida Atlantic in 2004, was hitting .231/.364/.500 with two homers and five RBIs in 26 at-bats this season . . . The Rangers activated their 2005 first-round pick, John Mayberry, off the disabled list and sent him to low Class A Clinton, where he was off to an 0-for-6 start with a pair of walks.

Contributing: Matt Eddy, Aaron Fitt, Chris Kline and Matt Meyers.