VISALIA, CA - The Visalia Rawhide trailed 6-3 going into the bottom of the sixth inning. Daulton Varsho led off the frame with a walk and, from there, the wheels fell off for San Jose reliever DJ Meyers.
VISALIA, CA - The Visalia Rawhide trailed 6-3 going into the bottom of the sixth inning. Daulton Varsho led off the frame with a walk and, from there, the wheels fell off for San Jose reliever DJ Meyers.
A Drew Ellis single and another walk to Mark Karaviotis loaded the bases for Stephen Smith. Smith hit a ground-ball double down the first base line to score both Varsho and Ellis and bring the Rawhide to within one.
Two batters later, Camden Duzenack lashed a double to left field that rolled to the wall and scored Karaviotis and Smith, giving the Rawhide their first lead of the game, 7-6.
With two outs, Pavin Smith launched an offering from Meyers deep out of the ballpark to right. The ball traveled so far that it nearly hit America's Largest Cowbell, which is staged at the back of the Pasture seating section in right field. It was Smith's first career regular season home run and put the Rawhide up 9-6. Meyers (L, 1-1) was responsible for all six runs scored in the inning.
For the second straight night, the Rawhide bullpen held firm, tossing four shutout innings to give Visalia (8-6) it's second straight win. Josh Taylor (SV, 3) allowed a leadoff single in the ninth but, after a groundout, ended the game quickly with a double play ball hit to second.
San Jose (8-6) took an early lead off of Rawhide starter Riley Smith, who labored through five-plus innings. The Giants scored in the first when Heath Quinn grounded out to bring home Bryce Johnson, who led off the game with a double.
Visalia proceeded to score a run in the third, fourth, and fifth innings, but each time the Rawhide brought a run home, the Giants had an answer.
San Jose added three runs in the fourth on a two-run single by Wander Franco and a RBI double by Brandon Van Horn. Jalen Miller hit a solo home run in the fifth inning, his third of the season.
Riley Smith started the sixth inning, but surrendered back-to-back singles to Sandro Fabian and Franco, which chased him from the ballgame.
Wei-Chieh Huang took over and allowed one of his two inherited runners to score by balking them forward and giving up a sacrifice fly to Connor Sabanosh. But Huang struck out one to escape the jam with minimal damage.
Huang (W, 2-1) pitched a perfect seventh with a pair of strikeouts and Miguel Aguilar tossed a scoreless eighth.
Sandro Cabrera made a spot start for San Jose in place of Mac Marshall and the southpaw was effective in his first start of the year, going five innings while allowing three runs on six hits.
Visalia hits the road for a four-game road trip in Stockton tomorrow. The first game of the series will feature Visalia RHP Connor Grey (2-0, 1.59) against Ports RHP Brian Howard (1-1, 1.74). First pitch is at 7:10 and the live radio broadcast can be heard on on rawhidebaseball.com.
