Bees Drop Series Finale Against Rainiers, Head Home with Series Split
The Salt Lake Bees were taken down by the Tacoma Rainiers in the final game of their six-game set on Sunday afternoon, falling by a final score of 8-2 to walk away from the week with a series split. The story of Sunday’s game was the performance of Tacoma starter
The Salt Lake Bees were taken down by the Tacoma Rainiers in the final game of their six-game set on Sunday afternoon, falling by a final score of 8-2 to walk away from the week with a series split.
The story of Sunday’s game was the performance of Tacoma starter Blas Castano, who bounced back from a clunky outing in the opener on Tuesday to put together what was without a doubt his best performance since being promoted to Triple-A at the beginning of last month. The Dominican righty made it through seven complete innings, allowing just two earned runs on a homer by Cole Tucker in the seventh while walking none and striking out 12 Bees hitters. This went down as the most punchouts by any pitcher against Salt Lake this season, and it was the second most by any player in the PCL this year behind only a 13-strikeout performance put together by Reno’s Yilber Diaz against Sacramento on July 1. Castano also got better as the game went on, retiring 15 hitters in a row between Tucker’s home run and Jack López’s single in the seventh inning.
Things did not go as well on the other side for Salt Lake starter Reid Detmers, who was touched up for six earned runs in his 3.2 innings of work, with the majority of this damage coming on a trio of Rainiers homers. The first of these came in the game’s opening frame, with Dominic Canzone jumping on the lefty in the second at-bat of the day for a solo home run that gave Tacoma its first lead. After the Bees took the lead back on Tucker’s home run, the Rainiers answered against Detmers in the third, with Samad Taylor smashing a three-run bomb with one out to put the home team in front once again and then Luis Urias tagging a two-run shot two batters later to further increase Salt Lake’s deficit. Tacoma didn’t let up after Detmers’s departure either, tacking on one more in in the fifth against reliever Travis MacGregor and another in the eighth against Bryan Shaw to bring the score up to 8-2, where it would stay for the rest of the day.
CoTuck clears the trees 🌲
— Salt Lake Bees (@SaltLakeBees) August 4, 2024
Cole Tucker smashes his third homer of the year to put us on top in the second! pic.twitter.com/3g6rSWpQ1A
The Bees will now travel home to start a new six-game set against the Las Vegas Aviators, with the first game of the series scheduled for Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. The games on Wednesday through Saturday are set to take place at the same start time, with Sunday’s finale getting going at 1:05 p.m.