51s drop pitchers’ duel to Sacramento, 1-0
Perhaps more than anything else, the Pacific Coast League is well known for high-scoring games.
Pitchers’ duels are rare and games going into extra innings knotted at zero are even more so.
And for a game to have had two starters sporting ERAs north of 7.00 to still be scoreless in the 10th, well, that’s even more improbable.
But Thursday night in Sacramento, that’s exactly what happened.
With some help from the new pace of play rules, the River Cats finally generated some offense and plated the first and only run of the game when Jordan Schafer scored on a Ronnie Freeman ground ball to short in the 10th inning, giving Sacramento a 1-0 win over Las Vegas in the series finale at Raley Field.
Ty Kelly’s throw to the plate from short was just a bit high, allowing Schafer, who started the inning on second base, to slide in safe.
The 51s threatened in their half of the 10th inning, loading the bases, but on a night when they couldn’t get anything going offensively, their best rally of the game fell short, too.
“When you go into those extra inning games, they’re very difficult,” manager Tony DeFrancesco said. “(Drew Smith) made a nice pitch and Ty, he bobbled it, bang bang at home. We had chances in the 10th, too. We had the bases loaded, we couldn’t drive them in.”
Before that, Las Vegas could do little against Sacramento starter Casey Kelly.
Kelly, who limited the 51s to two runs in six innings earlier this month, completely shut down Las Vegas on Thursday.
In his seven-inning start, Kelly gave up just one hit to Kevin Plawecki and walked a batter.
“He was throwing strikes, getting his breaking ball over. We really didn’t barrel him up too much,” DeFrancesco said. “We had a lot of weak fly balls today. He got into a rhythm and we just couldn’t break it.”
The River Cats had more baserunners against Drew Gagnon, but couldn’t scratch together a run off him, either.
Gagnon tossed his best start to date as a member of the 51s (20-28), going six innings and giving up just six hits.
He was backed up by his defense behind him as the River Cats (23-25) grounded into double plays in five of his six innings. Phillip Evans started all five of those double plays at shortstop.
“Gag’s been struggling going into the fifth or sixth inning, making a lot of mistakes but he concentrated each pitch, made some quality pitches and he was in control the whole game,” DeFrancesco said.
Gerson Bautista followed him into the game, tossing his best outing as a member of the 51s, too — 2⅓ scoreless innings.
“Bautista, who has high velocity, we’re trying to get him to be a little more deceptive, hide the ball and he’s been doing a better job with his command,” DeFrancesco said.
Kyle Regnault tossed ⅔ scoreless while Smith, who came on in the 10th, was tagged with the loss, though the run Schafer scored was unearned.
“It was a well-played game. … Our pitching was outstanding,” DeFrancesco said.
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