• Box score
• Gaston's player page • Pellegrini's player page • Bates makes Cal League history • Get a JetHawks cap When Jonathan Gaston hit a two-run homer to right field off Inland Empire 66ers Kendy Batista in the first inning Wednesday, there was no way of knowing it was just the beginning of another record-setting night in Lancaster. By the end of the evening, Gaston and Brian Pellegrini had both homered three times, the first time JetHawks teammates have done so in the same game. Gaston drove in five runs and Pellegrini four in Lancaster's 14-3 rout at Clear Channel Stadium. After Batista struck out Chris Minaker leading off the second, Pellegrini drove a pitch over the left-field wall. He added a solo shot in the fourth off reliever Thomas Melgarejo. Gaston, the Astros' seventh-round pick in the 2008 Draft, took Malgarejo deep in the fifth. After Gaston homered again in the bottom of the eighth, it seemed unlikely that Pellegrini would have an opportunity to catch up. But Minaker, hitless in his first three at-bats, slapped a two-out single up the middle. Pellegrini followed with his third homer of the game and fifth of the season. On the JetHawks' postgame radio show, Pellegrini admitted telling Minaker, "Please get on base so I can try to match Gaston." Home run records are nothing new to the JetHawks or Clear Channel Stadium. On May 19, 2007, Lancaster's Aaron Bates set the California League record by hitting four round-trippers against the Lake Elsinore Storm. Just over a month later, on June 23, teammate Brad Correll tied the mark against the High Desert Mavericks. Bates and Correll helped the JetHawks hit 217 homers during the 2007 season, eclipsing the Cal League mark of 203 set by the Mavericks two years earlier. Ironically, the power display by Gaston and Pellegrini came one night after Lancaster set a team record by recording 18 strikeouts in a 3-2 triumph over the 66ers. Josh Jackson is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs. |
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