Yarbrough turns in another gem for Bulls

Working off a string of stellar outings, Ryan Yarbrough provided the Triple-A Bulls with another gem on the mound.
Tampa Bay's No. 23 prospect allowed three hits over 7 2/3 frames and Durham held on to defeat the Tides, 1-0, at Harbor Park. He didn't allow a walk and struck out six.

"For me, it's just kind of staying aggressive, especially after that last start and kind of the way the year's going," Yarbrough said. "I think teams kind of know it, so I'm just staying aggressive and mixing speeds."
Gameday box score
The 25-year-old struck out six and has amassed 131 this year, one less than the league lead held by Gwinnett's Lucas Sims, the No. 19 Braves prospect, who has been with the Major League club since the start of August. Yarbrough (12-5) is tied with Rochester's Aaron Slegers for tops in the league in victories. In 22 starts this season, Yarbrough sports a 3.27 ERA over 135 innings.
On July 21 against Lehigh Valley, the Lakeland, Florida native fanned a career-high 13. Two starts later, he turned in a six-inning one-hitter on Aug. 1 against Charlotte.
"I don't necessarily think of myself as a strikeout pitcher," Yarbrough said. "It's just kind of being aggressive and attacking the strike zone kind of gets myself into those counts and being able to execute has been the big key this year."

On Sunday afternoon, the Old Dominion product retired the first five batters he faced before Drew Dosch beat out an infield single to the left side. Luis Sardiñas bounced back to Yarbrough for the final out in the second. Paul Janish lined a single to left with one out in the following inning before Chris Dickerson fanned on three pitches and Chris Johnson flew out to right to complete the third. 
"They were being aggressive early, so I was just trying to take advantage of that and trying to induce early contact," said the Mariners' fourth-round pick in 2014. "I had no walks and just trying to attack the bottom of the strike zone. it was a matter of mixing [my pitches] all up in certain counts, maybe where they weren't expecting certain pitches, so that just kind of works to get them off balance."

After perfect fourth and fifth frames, Johnson rolled an infield single to third with two outs in the sixth before Yarbrough struck out Francisco Peña looking. The left-hander pitched a 1-2-3 seventh and induced a pair of flyouts to start the eighth before being pulled after 86 pitches, 61 for strikes. He said his abrupt exit was an attempt to keep his season-total innings count under control.
"I talked to my pitching coach [Kyle Snyder], I didn't honestly necessarily think about where my pitch count was," Yarbrough said. "I was kind of just trying to keep attacking hitters so, that was pretty crazy, how many pitches I ended up throwing."
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Right-hander Diego Castillo completed the four-out save, his second of the year. The Bulls got their lone run in the sixth, when Patrick Leonard knocked in Rays' second-ranked prospect Willy Adames with a double to center.
Leonard also added two singles in four at-bats and Adames doubled and singled to raise his average to .264.