Offensive breakthrough not enough for 51s
It was the offensive showing that the Las Vegas 51s had been searching for and it should have been more than enough to win.
Instead, despite the offensive breakthrough, the 51s ended the night with their fifth straight loss, falling 17-11 to the Albuquerque Wednesday night at Isotopes Park.
The game started, like the one before, in a promising fashion for the 51s (1-6), who broke through with four runs in the first inning off of Albuquerque starter Matt Flemer thanks to five hits and some aggressive baserunning.
But A.J. Griffin couldn’t hold on to that lead giving up two two-run home runs to Drew Weeks and Tom Murphy.
From there, the scoring kept coming. The bottom of the sixth inning was the first half-inning for either team without a run.
“It was nice. We broke out,” 51s manager Tony DeFrancesco said. “We got 16 hits and scored 11 runs. We had a few home runs today. (Dominic Smith) looked good out there. (Zach) Borenstein and Ty Kelly had nice days. Unfortunately the pitching didn’t hold up today.”
Albuquerque (4-3) broke the game open in the third inning with five runs. Three of those came on a Raimel Tapia inside-the-park home run. Weeks hit his second blast of the game immediately after that.
Griffin, making his first start for the 51s after staying behind at extended spring training, got hit hard, giving up nine runs on nine hits in 2 1/3 innings, while walking three.
“Griff just didn’t have enough weapons to get these guys out,” DeFrancesco said. “He Fell behind. They got a couple homers off him and hit the ball hard. He’s been around. Hopefully he can bounce back.”
David Roseboom, who followed Griffin into the game, gave up five runs on four hits with three walks of his own in 1 2/3 innings while Kelly Secrest gave up three runs — one earned — in his two innings.
Offensively, though, the 51s had plenty to be happy about. After collecting 11 hits in the past two games, Las Vegas turned in its highest scoring game of the year.
Kelly led the charge offensively, going 4-for-5 with three RBIs and two home runs. He finished just a single short of the cycle.
Smith and David Thompson each had three hits of their own while Borenstein and Jose Lobaton also added two apiece. Kelly, Smith and Borenstein each hit home runs in the loss.
“Every team gets off to slow starts. This is our time right now but once the bats come alive and we get some quality pitching, I think we can compete here,” DeFrancesco said. “It’s just a mismatch right now with our bullpen that’s out of order. It was good to see Kelly and Smith (hit). We’ve got to get Bryce Brentz going now. Borenstein had a good game. … It was real fun to watch those guys hit tonight.”
Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.