Brandon Hynick pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing just five hits, zero walks while striking out four as the Sky Sox defeated Sacramento on Thursday night. Jeff Baker hit a home run and doubled and scored twice while Yorvit Torrealba had a pair of hits and two RBI and Ryan Speier pitched a scoreless inning in relief of Hynick as each nears readiness to return to the Rockies.
Hynick's now 5-3 with a 2.60 ERA in his last ten starts, but most of those haven't seen the command he displayed in yesterday's contest, although it probably also helps that just three of those last ten have been at home. Hynick is 5-2 with a 2.44 ERA on the road this season, 1-3 with a 6.51 ERA at Security Service Field.
The Drillers lone run came off a Daniel Mayora solo shot in the bottom of the second inning. Chaz Roe pitched okay for five innings, Andy Graham and Edgmer Escalona turned in nice relief efforts.
Brian Rike homered and had two hits. Jay Cox had a perfect OBP day with a double, a single and three walks (albeit he also had two errors), but a lack of big hits and Connor Graham's rough start sabotaged the Nuts efforts. Modesto outhit Visalia 11-9 but six of the nine Rawhide hits drove in runs for their team compared to just three for Modesto. Graham gave up six runs off six hits and was pulled with two outs in the fifth inning.
Jordan Pacheco hit a two run home run in the first inning and drove in three of Asheville's runs. Tyler Massey drove in the other two with what proved to be the game winning single in the eighth and had a two hit day at the plate. Jimmy Cesario (two hits, two runs scored), David Christensen (two hits and scored the winning run in the eighth), and Scott Robinson (a double and run scored) all also contributed on offense as the 1-5 slots in Asheville lineup went 8 for 18 with all the runs and RBI for the Tourists.
The Dust Devils lost for the first time this season as leadoff hitter Orlando Sandoval got a golden sombrero (4 K's) and those not in the 2-4 lineup slots for the team went a combined 1 for 23. The meat of Tri-City's lineup did alright, though, as Tim Wheeler, Kent Matthes and Scott Beerer each had mutihit games and those three collected the other eight of Tri-City's nine hits on the night.
Fiftieth round draft pick Nate Hines made his Ghosts debut in style, getting two hits, including a home run. Chad Jacobsen also had a pair of hits including a triple, but the rest of the Ghosts offense was pretty spotty, and the pitching of starter Ricardo Ferrer in particular wasn't quite good enough to pull out a win for Casper.