Bees Explode for Twenty Hits in Rout of Aces

The Salt Lake Bees snapped their three-game losing streak against the Reno Aces in grand fashion on Friday evening, using a season-high 20 hits to pick up their first win of the series by a final score of 15-8.

After scoring just six runs combined over the previous two games of the series, the Bees put that many up on the board in just the first inning alone on Friday, setting the tone for what would become a banner night at the plate. The offensive outburst got started just three batters into the game, as Elliot Soto drove home the first run of the day with a ground ball up the middle that brought Michael Stefanic in from second base. The floodgates opened up soon after this, with a run-scoring knock by Zach Humphreys and two separate two-RBI singles by Drew Ellis and Jack López increasing the team’s advantage up to 6-0 in very short order.

🚨 RALLY ALERT 🚨

Drew Ellis single + Zach Humphreys single + Jack López single = 6-0 lead in the first 🤩 pic.twitter.com/J2oR7pF651

— Salt Lake Bees (@SaltLakeBees) June 1, 2024

The Aces battled back from here, tallying two runs in the bottom of the first and four in the fourth off of Salt Lake starter Zach Plesac to tie the game at six apiece. The Bees bats had gone dormant during this stretch, but with things knotted back up, they roared back to life once again with six more unanswered runs to regain their commanding lead. The team tallied three scores in both the fifth and seventh innings, with Humphreys and López doing the damage in the former and Hunter Dozier and Charles Leblanc leading the way in the latter. Reno did tack on two in the eighth off of reliever Guillo Zuñiga to make things interesting again, but this rally was quickly swatted down by yet another three spot from the Salt Lake lineup immediately after. López continued his big day with a sacrifice fly in the game’s final frame, and Stefanic capped the night off with a two-RBI base hit of his own just two batters later.

Singles tally: NINETEEN 🤯

Michael Stefanic gets his third of the night and we've matched a season-high with 15 runs pic.twitter.com/oftMQg9zay

— Salt Lake Bees (@SaltLakeBees) June 1, 2024

In many ways, the performance that the Bees offense gave was the best of the season to date. The 15 runs that they scored tied the season high that they set on May 7 at Smith’s Ballpark against Sacramento, and it was also the first time that they tallied at least 20 hits in a game since June 19, 2018, when they racked up 24 in a 17-9 win against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox. Interestingly, the first 19 of these hits on Friday were all singles, which marked the first time that Salt Lake tallied that many one-baggers in a game since at least 2004. On the individual side, everyone in the Bees lineup tallied at least one hit and reached base at least twice. Bryce Teodosio led the way in hits with a 4-for-5 night, and he was joined in the multi-hit column by Stefanic, Dozier, Leblanc, Humphreys, López and Jason Martin, who tagged the only extra-base hit of the game with a double in the ninth. The team also managed 11 walks on the night, with Ellis drawing the most out of everyone with three.

The Bees will now look to keep the bats red hot against the Aces on Saturday, with the first pitch from Greater Nevada Field scheduled for 7:35 p.m.