Forrest Snow pitched seven innings of one-hit ball and
Shawn "Oh, Really? No" O'Malley hit a two-run homer as the Tacoma Rainiers beat the Albuquerque Isotopes 4-1 June 14 at Cheney Stadium on a simply gorgeous sunny Sunday afternoon.
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A gorgeous day at Cheney Stadium as the Rainiers defeated
Albuquerque 4-1. Photo: Greg Scheiderer. |
My
Sweetie, the official scorer, and I have never seen a no-hitter, and we always point that out to each other once each side has a safety in a game. Today's contest was as close as we've come, but it wasn't that close. Albuquerque's lone hit of the day was an emphatic one, a booming, 410-foot leadoff triple to left center in the top of the second by Isotope center fielder
Drew Stubbs. Snow, who is a tall drink of water out on the mound at 6'6", did his best to strand Stubbs. He got Albuquerque catcher
Dustin Gameau to squib one right in front of home plate, and Tacoma backstop
Steve Baron pounced on it and fired to first to retire Gameau for the first out, with Stubbs holding. The next batter, second-sacker
Angelys Nina, hit a fly ball to fairly shallow center field. Stubbs tagged and scored as
Leon Landry's throw was weak and off line.
Tacoma took the lead for good in the bottom of the third when shortstop
Chris Taylor hit a one-out single off Isotope starter
Yohan Flande, and O'Malley followed with his third home run of the season, a no-doubt blast over the fence in left center. The Rainiers added single runs in the sixth and eighth. They could have had more, especially in the sixth, when they had the sacks full and one run already in with no outs, but three straight shallow fly balls didn't advance a soul.
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| Forrest Snow. |
Snow was a little wild, as he walked four and struck out three in seven innings of work, leaving after throwing 98 pitches, 57 for strikes. He evened his record at 4-4 and lowered his earned run average to 2.43.
Edgar Olmos closed it out for Tacoma, retiring Albuquerque in order in the eighth and ninth, striking out three of the six batters he faced and notching his first save of the year. Tacoma piled up 13 hits, with three from
Carlos Rivero and two each from Taylor, O'Malley, and Landry. Taylor, recently banished to Tacoma after a short stint with the big club, was robbed of a third hit when his leadoff screamer in the seventh was snared on a leaping grab by first-sacker
Matt McBride. Baron was the only Rainier without a knock. Tacoma somewhat limited its scoring chances by hitting into two double plays and having two runners thrown out stealing; squandering baserunners seems to be an organizational imperative at all levels.
Marte out
It was disappointing not to see top prospect
Ketel Marte. The shortstop broke his thumb June 1 and will be out for at least four more weeks. He's hitting .343.
Montero makes the play
Jesus Montero will probably never make anyone forget
John Olerud defensively down at first base, but he made a couple of nice plays Sunday. His diving stop of a hot grounder by Albuquerque right fielder
Roger Bernadina turned what looked like a base hit into a 3-1 out. In the fourth Montero made a nice pick when Taylor fielded Gameau's grounder deep in the hole at short, whirled, and fired a short-hopper to first.
No free parking
We were a bit surprised to be charged $10 for parking at Cheney Stadium Sunday. It has been $5 since we can remember. It may be the first parking hike there since 1967. Nevertheless, a 100-percent bump is a little surprising. Our car needs washing, badly, and for that price they could have done a little detailing!
Box score
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