VISALIA, CA - A day after being named to the California League Postseason All-Star Team, Jose Almonte had to work out of trouble in the first inning. He found himself having loaded the bases with one out and he had two powerful hitters coming up for San Jose. But Almonte,
VISALIA, CA - A day after being named to the California League Postseason All-Star Team, Jose Almonte had to work out of trouble in the first inning. He found himself having loaded the bases with one out and he had two powerful hitters coming up for San Jose. But Almonte, who had struck out Ryan Howard to begin the game, reached deep and found something and struck out both Dillon Dobson and Gio Brusa to end the first and strand the bases loaded. Almonte (W, 10-8) would only allow one more baserunner for the rest of his outing as Visalia (64-65/28-31) cruised to a 5-1 win over San Jose (58-71/28-31).
Almonte went the requisite five innings to earn a win and allowed just two hits: a first inning single and a third inning double to Bryan Reynolds. Outside of Reynolds, he set down the side in order, struck out eight hitters, and retired the final seven men that he faced in succession.The victory gave Almonte a double-digit win total for the first time in his career and lifted his season strikeout total to 155, the highest total in the California League, and lowered his ERA to 3.49, good for third best in the league. The outing marked his second consecutive shutout outing after he blanked Modesto over six innings last time he was on the bump.
Wei-Chei Huang took over in the sixth and kept the game flowing smoothly the rest of the way, pitching four solid innings of relief and striking out six Giants hitters along the way. Huang (SV, 1) allowed just one unearned run on two hits after Henry Castillo's error in the ninth inning allowed Jonah Arenado to reach. Arenado would later score on a Heath Quinn single for the lone Giants run of the game.
Joe Panik, who was on a rehab assignment from the San Francisco Giants, went hitless in four plate appearances, but did walk against Almonte in the first and reached on one of Castillo's two fielding errors in the eighth.
The Rawhide offense came over the middle innings against Shaun Anderson (L, 2-3) and Michael Cederoth. Anderson pitched two scoreless innings before running into trouble in the third when, with two outs, Mark Karaviotis drew a walk and Grant Heyman was hit by a pitch. Both Austin Byler and Henry Castillo singled to center to plate Karaviotis and Heyman respectively and put the Rawhide on top.
After Fernery Ozuna and Matt McPhearson both singled to begin the fourth, Anderson walked Seth Spivey to end his night after three-plus innings. Cederoth allowed a sacrifice fly to Jason Morozowski but limited the damage to just the one run despite inheriting the bases loaded with nobody out.
Byler and Spivey homered off of Cederoth, both going the opposite way on line drives, in the fifth and sixth innings respectively to give the Rawhide the five-run advantage.
Visalia will conclude their final series against San Jose tomorrow and will match up RHP Jon Duplantier (5-1, 1.86) against San Jose LHP Domenic Mazza (0-0. -.-) with first pitch slated for 7 PM. Tickets are still available on Rawhidebaseball.com.
