VISALIA, CA - Jose Almonte delivered one of his best starts of the season by blanking the Modesto Nuts over six one-hit innings to lead the Rawhide to a 6-3 win. Almonte (W, 9-8) won his first decision since July 26 here in Visalia and helped bring the Rawhide to
VISALIA, CA - Jose Almonte delivered one of his best starts of the season by blanking the Modesto Nuts over six one-hit innings to lead the Rawhide to a 6-3 win. Almonte (W, 9-8) won his first decision since July 26 here in Visalia and helped bring the Rawhide to within one game of first in the Cal League North second half standings.
Almonte set down Modesto (65-58/26-27) in order three times and set down he final five men that he faced. He struck out only three, but induced weak contact and used a fourth-inning double play ball to work around a leadoff hit batsman. He carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning when, with one out, Donnie Walton hit an opposite-field line drive for the first Nuts hit of the night. Almonte responded by getting Logan Taylor to fly out and inducing a groundout from Arturo Nieto.
Visalia (61-62/25-28) broke through by scoring on sacrifice flies in the third and fifth innings and then padded the lead when Fernery Ozuna singled home Austin Byler in the sixth to make it a 3-0 Rawhide lead. It was the first Rawhide hit with runners in scoring position since August 11 in Stockton, when Austin Byler singled home Seth Spivey in the third inning.
Visalia tacked on three more in the bottom of the seventh by taking advantage of two Walton errors at short. Grant Heyman singled home a run and Henry Castillo doubled home two to put Visalia up 6-2.
The Nuts got all three of their runs off of the Rawhide bullpen, plating two off of Tommy Eveld in the seventh and another off of Cameron Gann in the eighth. Luis Liberato and Joe DeCarlo hit home runs for Modesto, but it wasn't enough to overcome Visalia's big innings.
Robert Dugger (L, 1-3) pitched 5.1 innings and allowed three runs, two earned, on only five hits and struck out five, but was out-dueled by Almonte and was credited with his third straight losing decision.
Heyman finsiehd wist two hits and a RBI and Matt McPHearson added two hits, including a double, and a steal.
Visalia will look for the series win tomorrow against Modesto tomorrow evening, with first pitch at 7 PM. The Rawhide will start LHP Robbie Ray (0-0, -.- against Modesto RHP Nathan Bannister (6-6, 4.53). Tickets are still available on Rawhidebaseball.com.
