Rawhide Pitching Rolls, Giants Lose 5-1

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VISALIA, CA - Visalia pitchers Jose Almonte and Wei-Chieh Huang combined on a four-hitter with 15 strikeouts in a 5-1 Rawhide victory over the San Jose Giants on Wednesday night at Recreation Park. Visalia scored in four straight innings from the third through sixth on their way to evening the series at a game apiece. With the loss, San Jose (28-31) falls one game behind Modesto (29-30) for first place in the second half North Division race with 11 to play in the regular season.
Heath Quinn (2-for-4, RBI) and Bryan Reynolds (2-for-4, 2B) had two hits apiece to lead the Giants offensively in defeat. The duo combined for all four San Jose hits in the contest.
San Francisco Giants second baseman Joe Panik finished 0-for-3 with a walk in the first game of a rehabilitation assignment with San Jose.
Almonte (10-8), a midseason and postseason California League All-Star, earned the win after tossing five scoreless innings with two hits allowed, two walks and eight strikeouts. Huang pitched the final four innings to earn his first save of the year. He surrendered just one unearned run on two hits and struck out seven.
The Giants threatened early against Almonte, but left the bases loaded in the top of the first. Panik drew a one-out walk before Reynolds singled to left. Jonah Arenado then walked to load the bases, but Almonte recovered with consecutive strikeouts of Dillon Dobson and Gio Brusa to end the inning.
Shaun Anderson started on the mound for San Jose and began his night with two scoreless innings before running into trouble in the bottom of the third. With two outs, Mark Karaviotis drew a walk before Grant Heyman was hit by a pitch. Back-to-back RBI singles from Austin Byler and Henry Castillo then gave the Rawhide a 2-0 lead.
Visalia then kept the pressure on with another run against Anderson in the bottom of the fourth. Fernery Ozuna led off with a single before stealing second base. Matt McPhearson then reached on an infield single before a walk to Seth Spivey loaded the bases. Michael Cederoth was then summoned from the bullpen and he managed to hold the Rawhide to one run in the frame on a Jason Morozowski sacrifice fly.
Visalia though extended their lead with a pair of solo home runs off of Cederoth in the next two innings. In the fifth, Byler belted a solo homer to left before Spivey went deep in the bottom of the sixth to make it 5-0.
Meanwhile, a stretch of 17 out of 18 Giants hitters were retired until Quinn singled with two outs in the top of the seventh. San Jose's only run of the night came in the top of the ninth as Arenado reached on an error to leadoff before taking second on a wild pitch. Quinn then lined a two-out single into left plating Arenado to cut the Rawhide lead to 5-1. Huang though quickly recovered as he struck out the next batter, Matt Winn, to end the game.
Anderson (2-3) suffered the loss after yielding three runs (all earned) on five hits over three-plus innings. He walked three and struck out three during his 68-pitch outing.
Notes
* Wednesday's loss clinched a sub-.500 overall record for the Giants (58-71).
* Visalia out-hit San Jose 10-4.
* Almonte ranks first in the California League in strikeouts (155), third in ERA (3.49) and tied for third in wins (10).
* The #5 through #9 spots in the Giants lineup combined to strikeout 12 times in 19 at-bats (2-for-12).
* San Jose reliever Drew Muren struck out six batters over two scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth. Muren pitched for Visalia during the 2016 season while a member of the Diamondbacks organization.
* The Giants fell to 10-17 against the Rawhide this season.
On Deck
The Giants and Rawhide conclude their three-game series on Thursday evening with first pitch at Recreation Park scheduled for 7:00 PM. Domenic Mazza (0-0, --- ERA) is slated to start on the mound for San Jose while Visalia is expected to counter with Jon Duplantier (5-2, 1.86 ERA). The game can be heard live on sjgiants.com with coverage beginning at 6:40 PM.