Tanielu leads JetHawks' attack with five hits

Nick Tanielu couldn't quite make out why he just had the best game of his career, but he knows watching his JetHawks teammates had something to do with it.

"I think hitting is really contagious," the Astros prospect said. "Guys started the game off hot and people just kept going. Once you get a lot of runs like that, guys are hungry to get more hits."

Tanielu collected a career-high five hits, drove in two runs and scored twice Saturday night in Class A Advanced Lancaster's 19-5 rout of Visalia at The Hangar.

The JetHawks totaled 16 hits, one day after the Rawhide had 16 in a 14-7 victory.

"It's just one of those days where you feel like your guys aren't getting out," Tanielu said. "But if you came to the game before, you would've seen the same thing from the other team. We'll just see how tomorrow goes."

The 23-year-old third baseman singled for each of his hits, with the first coming off rehabbing D-backs right-hander Josh Collmenter in the opening inning. Tanielu added a knock in each of the next three frames before reaching on error in the fifth and collecting his final hit in the seventh.

"You just had a lot of luck on your side and finding holes pretty much," Tanielu said. "It was just your night at the plate where you are finding barrel. God was on my side tonight."

The 2014 14th-round pick also pushed his hitting streak to five games, during which he's 12-for-23.

"From the stats point, it looks like I'm hitting well, and I'm not trying to take anything away from that," he said, "but there are also a lot of things I've been trying to work on. Tonight, I wish I could've driven the ball more into the gaps, but you'll always take a 5-for-6 night. We are in A-ball trying to get better and right now, I'm just trying to keep finding my swing. I'll take tonight as a blessing from God because that doesn't happen every day."

The Washington State product raised his batting average 30 points to .350 after hitting .308 in 110 games with Class Quad Cities last year. He spotted the differences between the two levels quickly and made his adjustments accordingly.

"The pitching is a lot different here from Low-A," he said. "They pitch backwards a lot, so you kind of have to have the mindset to go up and just find a pitch and drive it."

Tanielu felt the same thing clicked for most of his teammates on Saturday.

"Bobby Boyd started the game off with a double, Ramon Laureano was really locked in tonight and Jamie Ritchie is really seeing the ball well," he said. "Just guys that I think were patient up there and a lot of guys hit a lot of balls hard and didn't get rewarded. I think tonight was a big step for us. Our offense had been kind of shaky and slow lately, but we keep working on it and tonight showed what we can do."

Boyd finished with three hits, while Garrett Stubbs went 2-for-5 with his first California League homer and four RBIs. Drew Ferguson and Ritchie also had two hits apiece and combined to drive in five runs.

Evan Grills (3-1) went five innings for the win, allowing four runs on three hits and two walks to go with six strikeouts. Yeyfry Del Rosario fanned four over 2 2/3 frames and Angel Heredia was perfect the rest of the way.