Salt Lake Heads to Albuquerque for Second Meeting With Isotopes

The Salt Lake Bees (31-29) will be in Albuquerque, New Mexico this week for a six-game series against the Albuquerque Isotopes (26-34), the Triple-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. The teams will open the series Tuesday night at 6:35 and the series finale will take place on Sunday, June 19.

The Bees are coming off of a three-game weekend series in Oklahoma City where they picked up just one win. That one win came on Friday night when Kean Wong hit a three-run double in the 10th inning to lock up the victory for Salt Lake. Magneuris Sierra had four hits in the series and Matt Thaiss knocked in four runs. David MacKinnon had two hits and worked six walks to extend his on-base streak to 24 games in a row, the second-longest active streak in the PCL.

Salt Lake has lost seven of their last 10 games, but are still only 3.5 games behind Las Vegas for first place in the PCL West. Their pitching staff continues to be the best in the PCL, with a 4.47 ERA, three complete games, and three shutouts. They have allowed a league-low 51 home runs, 202 walks, and are holding batters to a league-low .243 batting average. On the road, the Bees have been the best pitching staff in Triple-A, putting up a 3.84 ERA away from Smith’s Ballpark. They have posted a league-low WHIP of 1.20 and have held opponents to a league-low .218 batting average in their own ballparks.

MacKinnon leads the PCL in OPS at 1.043 coming into Tuesday’s matchup. He is also ranked second in on-base percentage (.425), second in walks (34), second in extra-base hits (29), fourth in slugging percentage (.618), fifth in batting average (.323), and sixth in RBI (39).

Albuquerque is coming off a six-game series against El Paso, having played three games in New Mexico before going to El Paso for three games. They only picked up two wins against the Chihuahuas, winning both the first game and the final game. Wynton Bernard is ranked fourth in the PCL in batting average, hitting .333 on the season. He is also ranked fifth in slugging (.607) and fifth in OPS (.984). Elehuris Montero, the Rockies’ No. 5 prospect, is ranked eighth in the PCL with a .314 batting average.

The Bees and the Isotopes have already played a six-game set this season, just under a month ago in Salt Lake. The Bees took four of the six games including a 8-0 shutout in front of the largest home crowd of the season. David MacKinnon was named PCL Player of the Week for his performance in that series, hitting .391 with four home runs, 24 total bases, and eight RBI. He had at least one extra-base hit in each game and hit home runs in four of the six. He became the first Bees hitter to be named Player of the Week since Brennan Boesch on June 23, 2014, breaking a streak of 141 consecutive weeks without a Salt Lake batter winning the honor.