Rockies farm roundup: Frazier on, Matzek off

Low Class-A Asheville (L, 15-5 at August, box ) allowed eight runs on three hits and six walks in 1 1/3 innings. He struck out two and threw two wild pitches. Shortstop Cristhian Adames was 3-for-5 with a double, a triple, two RBI and a run scored. Second baseman Russell Wilson was 2-for-4 with two runs and a stolen base. Center fielder Avery Barnes was 2-for-3 with a double, a triple, two RBI and a run.

Short Season Class-A Tri-City (L, 5-4 vs. Everett, box )

Love the huge contracts draftees demand, get paid and then usually fail to deliver on. Matzek has been deplorable. How can he not be hurt and stink so bad. Did I read they tried to rework his delivery? If so, they screwed him up terribly. He walked too many last year but he’s looking like he will be out of baseball in a couple of years. Shut him down for the season, clear his brain with a psychologist and start over next season.

I’ve said this several times before but it seems SO fitting right now – that I’ll say it again. Give me the Chris Balcolm-Miller type pitchers (outstanding pitch command) over the Matzek type pitchers (no control at all) – especially AT Coors Field.

Certainly would expect some Rockies scout to get fired over this siituation! As for Matzek – do the right thing – give the money back and go get a real job outside of baseball.

Finally remember when the Rockies “protected” Matzek in Extended Spring Training in an effort to limit his innings – what a joke!

Review: Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen at PDX Gallery and Mel ...

Class has been called to attention in Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen's lovely, if artfully contrived, new show at PDX Contemporary Art.

The husband-and-wife artist team have fabricated a group of sculptures and printed work called "The Classroom" that contemplates the "politics and aesthetics of education" through a "variety of pedagogical tools and methods."

I'm not sure what that means, and I wonder if the artists do.

Gray and Paulsen are recent graduates of Portland State University's master of fine arts program, and they grasp and aspire to high ideas, though it's not clear what vertiginous perspective can be witnessed beyond the summit.

Conceptually, I'm not sure what brings the works in this show together beyond each being linked in some way to education, schooling, art history and intellectual movements.

In one regard, we shouldn't stress our brains too much. Gray and Paulsen craft crisp, minimalist work flecked with currents of humor that commands long viewing and admiration for their prettiness.

A series of "color plot" prints, for instance, are tidy constructions of little boxes of color that, from a distance, resemble the flickering light readings from a stereo equalizer or elaborate color code keys. (The number of colored boxes was determined by some kind of algorithm taken from the pages of famous novels, including "Moby-Dick" and "To the Lighthouse.")

Similarly, in another series called "Problems of Categorization," columns of neat, yearbook-style photos of famous intellectuals and artists have been constructed using different systems of categorization. In one, the alphabet corresponds to the surnames of famous philosophers -- Claude Levi-Strauss, Friedrich Nietzsche, bell hooks, etc. It's a nifty roll call of the intelligentsia.

There's much more: an installation composed of two stacks of ruled notebook paper, a classroom desk and chair specially outfitted with a pillow and H.W. Janson's iconic textbook, "History of Art," and a madly clever pencil set where the name of an artist and one of their significant works has been printed on the spine of each pencil.

What to make of these clean, clear-eyed Minimalist works? This PDX show continues the artists' committed, tenacious exploration of ideas and a devotion to beautiful craft.

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