Bees Walked Off in Tough Extra-Inning Loss to Space Cowboys

The Salt Lake Bees lost a heartbreaker against the Sugar Land Space Cowboys on Wednesday night, falling in walk off fashion in extra innings by the final score of 3-2.

Wednesday’s game played out as a textbook pitcher’s duel throughout the night, with the entirety of the scoring for both teams in regulation coming via a lone run apiece in the fourth inning. The Bees struck first in the top half of this frame, getting on the board on an RBI single by Chad Stevens for his third in three games in Salt Lake, while the Space Cowboys answered back in the bottom half on a two-out RBI knock by Cooper Hummel. Beyond these two instances, though, it was all pitching, with both teams trading zeroes for the rest of the game until extra innings. On Salt Lake’s side, Reid Detmers took the ball and put together his third straight excellent start, tossing six innings of one-run ball while surrendering just two hits and four walks and striking out nine opposing hitters. This effort was matched by Sugar Land’s Ryan Gusto, however, as the righty allowed just one run of his own over five innings while allowing five hits and punching out six. The two bullpens showed out as well, with the trio of Michael Darrell-Hicks, Hans Crouse and Guillo Zuñiga spinning three scoreless innings for the Bees and Forrest Whitley, Rafael Montero and Wander Suero navigating four for Sugar Land.

This brought the game to the 10th inning, and in the top half of the frame, it seemed as though the Bees finally got the breakthrough they’d been waiting for. Jake Marisnick led things off by dropping down a two-strike bunt against reliever Luis Contreras to move Zach Humphreys to third base, and in the next plate appearance, Jordyn Adams lifted a sacrifice fly out to right field to give Salt Lake its lead back once again. This advantage would not hold, however, as the Space Cowboys answered right back in the bottom of the inning to spoil the Bees' fun. Pinch hitter Jacob Melton started off Sugar Land’s rally with a single off of Zuñiga just past the outstretched glove of Charles Leblanc at third base, and after he stole second to put the winning run just 180 feet away, Dixon Machado came up and laced a 2-1 fastball into left field to plate both runners and walk things off for the home team.

The Bees will now try to shake off the tough loss and snap their eight-game losing streak against the Space Cowboys on Thursday evening, with José Suarez getting the starting assignment for Salt Lake for first pitch at 6:05 p.m.