Storm Lose Power, Lose to Giants in First Game of Homestand Presented by The Valley News
The Storm returned to The Lake Elsinore Diamond this afternoon after a 4-2 road trip to Visalia. They were also playing with the fourth-ranked San Diego Padres prospect, Leodalis De Vries, who was set for his first home appearance of the season. Despite this whirlwind of positivity, they also lost
The Storm returned to The Lake Elsinore Diamond this afternoon after a 4-2 road trip to Visalia. They were also playing with the fourth-ranked San Diego Padres prospect, Leodalis De Vries, who was set for his first home appearance of the season. Despite this whirlwind of positivity, they also lost two players to injury and were set to face the 21-17 San Jose Giants who play in the more difficult California League North. This culminated in a 3-1 loss on Tuesday night in their first of 12 home games over the next 13 days.
Their starting pitcher gave them a chance. Fernando Sanchez had his second consecutive solid home start going five innings, striking out seven, and only allowing one earned run. In his previous home start, he went six innings, also allowing just one earned run, and striking out five against the Inland Empire 66ers. Tonight, his one-earned run would come in the second inning. He would walk the first batter of that inning and hit the next.
He would then strikeout the next batter he faced and catcher Oswaldo Linares would throw out the runner at third on an attempted double steal. Unfortunately, the fourth at bat of the inning yielded a single that drove in the runner at second. The Storm pitching staff would allow just two more runs, however, the offense never found its footing.
They would score only on a bases-loaded walk from Rosman Verdugo and totaled just four hits in the entire game. De Vries would go 0-4 with three strikeouts in his home debut and Romeo Sanabria would get on base twice, both times on walks.
The Storm will have Jose Luis Reyes on the mound as they hope to get back over .500 on the year.