Home Runs Sink Stockton In 5-2 Loss
STOCKTON, Calif. - Stockton Ports starter Raul Alcantara (3-1) gave up only four hits over his six innings of work. Unfortunately for him, three of those four hits were solo home runs. The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes hit four total home runs in Friday night's contest as they went on to a 5-2 win over the Ports and took two of three in the series.
Stockton got off to a fast start in the first inning as Antonio Lamas tripled to center and scored on a two-out RBI single by Tony Thompson to give the Ports a 1-0 lead. After Thompson's single, however, Quakes starter Carlos Frias went on to retire the next 16 batters in a row and 19 of his final 20 to finish his outing.
Frias enjoyed his best start of the year and went on to earn the win in impressive fashion, allowing just three hits over seven innings while striking out a season-high 11.
The Quakes tied the game immediately as Bobby Coyle led off the second inning with a solo homer to right, his second home run of the series. Alcantara went on to set down the next nine batters in a row before surrendering a leadoff home run to O'Koyea Dickson in the fifth, his second home run of the series, the gave the Quakes their first lead at 2-1. After setting down the next five batters after Dickson's home run, Alcantara gave up a two-out solo homer to Scott Schebler in the sixth that made it 3-1.
Alcantara suffered his first loss in the California League, going six innings and allowing three runs on four hits while striking out four.
After Jonathan Joseph tossed two perfect innings and recorded three strikeouts, T.J. Walz took over in the ninth and gave up a leadoff single to Pedro Guerrero, followed by a two-run homer to Schebler, his second of the night and 20th of the season, that stretch the Quakes lead to 5-2.
After Joel Lima pitched around a two-out triple to keep the Ports off the board in the eighth, Jarret Maritn came on to pitch the ninth and gave up an infield single to Josh Whitaker to start the inning. After striking out B.A. Vollmuth, Martin yielded back-to-back walks to Thompson and Dusty Robinson to load the bases. Bruce Maxwell came up representing the possible-tying run and hit a sac-fly to left to score Whitaker from third. Rashun Dixon came up next as the possible-tying run and fouled out to second baseman Scott Wingo to end the ballgame.
After dropping four of six games on their homestand, the Ports head to San Jose on Saturday to kick off a three-game series with the Giants, the start of a six-game road trip. Josh Bowman (3-3, 6.70 ERA) will make the start for the Ports, opposed by Giants left-hander Ty Blach (10-3, 2.63 ERA). First pitch is set for 5 p.m. PDT.