Peterson and O'Neill homer, Diaz fans eight in Generals' victory

D.J. Peterson notched three hits, including his first homer of the season, and Edwin Diaz turned in another strong performance in the Jackson Generals' 9-3 victory over the Birmingham Barons Monday night.

Diaz, making his third start of the season for the Generals, tossed five innings of one-run ball, allowing two hits and one walk while fanning eight along the way. Diaz found himself in trouble initially after allowing a home run and a double to open the game, but the Mariners' No. 2 prospect settled down and put it in cruise control immediately after. He threw 59 of his 84 pitches for strikes and finished with a game score of 66. It'd be nice to see him eventually start working himself deeper into ball games, but his start to this season has been spectacular. He has now struck out 24 while allowing just 8 hits in 16.0 IP.

Other pitchers who took the mound in the game were Emilio Pagan and Dan Altavilla, two guys who are good bets to make it to Seattle down the road. Pagan's command was poor for the most part and he finished with three walks in 2.0 IP, but his pitches had a lot of life to them. Through three appearances, Pagan has only surrendered one run and three hits in 6.1 IP. His command was fine in the other two outings, so this isn't something to worry about.

Altavilla, who has made the long-awaited shift to the bullpen this season, surrendered his first run of the season in two innings of work while picking up the save.

On the offensive side of things, it was quite a night. D.J. Peterson, who we're all hoping still has an elite hitter buried somewhere inside of him, cranked his first homer of the season, a moonshot to left field in the 6th inning off of Carson Fulmer–the 8th-overall pick in the 2015 draft. Peterson also added a couple singles, raising his line to .227/.277/.341. It's not the prettiest line in the world, but Rome wasn't built in a day and I'd imagine if Rome ever forgot how to hit and struggled in the Arizona Fall League and burned itself to the ground in a fit of rage, it wouldn't be rebuilt in a day, either.

Meanwhile, Tyler O'Neill just kept on hitting. The 20-year-old hit a 430-foot bomb to left-center in the first inning and had a laser of a double in the fifth inning. He was also looking better against breaking stuff, drawing out a couple long at-bats on the night. Both of his strikeouts came when he was fooled by fastballs. We're seeing some promising stuff from the youngster.

And now, some wet hot farm system notes:

• Logan Taylor went 2 for 4 in Class-A Clinton's 11-3 loss to Peoria. Taylor is now hitting .371/.410/.371 on the year. He'll probably get an extra base hit one of these days. In the meantime, let's all ooh and ahh at that .410 OBP. Ooooooh. Ahhhhhh.
• Mike Zunino homered TWICE in Triple-A Tacoma's 11-6 loss to Albuquerque and is now hitting .447/.450/1.000. Interpret this as you will; I'm just happy to see Mike happy.
• Joe Wieland surrendered 10 runs in 1.1 IP in Tacoma's loss. 10 runs in 1.1 IP. He threw 60 pitches. David Rollins, the last Tacoma pitcher on the day, tossed 1.2 perfect innings. I don't know. I'm just throwing this out into the void.
• Chris Taylor hit a home run for Tacoma, his first since 2014. He's currently hitting .333/.417/.595 on the year.
• Anthony Misiewicz tossed six strong innings for High-A Bakersfield Blaze, allowing just one run on three hits. The lefty out of Michigan State flashed some good stuff in Everett last year and it's great to see it translating to the Cal League.