July 1 Game Notes: Tacoma Rainiers vs. Salt Lake Bees

TACOMA RAINIERS (45-36) vs. SALT LAKE BEES (35-45)
Monday, July 1 • 7:05 PM • Cheney Stadium • Tacoma, WA
RHP Blas Castano (0-0, -.--) vs. RHP Ryan Langford (0-0, 1.35)

TONIGHT’S GAME: Tacoma and Salt Lake will start their six-game series tonight with game one of three at Cheney Stadium before heading to Smith’s Ballpark for the final three games. Blas Castano will make his Tacoma Rainiers debut, set to make his 16th appearance and 13th start of the season. Castano has spent the entire season up to this point with Double-A Arkansas, going 0-4 with a 3.31 ERA over his 51.2 innings with the Travelers. Over that span, the right-hander has allowed 19 earned runs on 50 hits and 19 walks while striking out 34 batters. Opposite Castano will be Ryan Langford taking the ball for Salt Lake, pitching in his fourth game and third start for the Bees. Langford started Salt Lake’s game on Saturday and threw 1.2 perfect innings, striking out a batter along the way before the game got suspended due to rain. In his three games with the Bees this year, Langford is 0-0 with a 1.35 ERA, allowing one earned run on four hits and three walks while striking out three batters in 6.2 innings.

START A NEW ONE: Tacoma wrapped up the month of June last night in Sugar Land, losing their final two games of the month. They tied their season-high for wins in a single month with 15, going 15-11 while they went 15-10 in April. Tacoma’s hitting numbers stacked up with April as well, while their pitching metrics were unique. They had their second-highest ERA for a month at 4.64, walking 20 more batters and striking out seven more than any other month this season. Their 116 walks in June marked the first time they reached triple-digit walks in a single month, and their 203 strikeouts was the first 200+ strikeout month of the season as well. They started the month of June with two losses and will look to start July on a better note tonight.

WATCH OUT: Tacoma is 7-5 through their first 12 games against Salt Lake, but the Bees have a new offensive weapon that they didn’t have when the two teams played in the first half of the season. Keston Hiura was released by Detroit on June 3 and signed by the Angels on June 11, getting sent to Salt Lake that day. The infielder is in his fifth season at the Triple-A level and is scorching hot entering this series against Tacoma. The 27-year-old enters play tonight hitting .397 (25-for-63) with a double and 11 home runs through his first 16 games with the Bees. Over that span, he has driven in 20 runs and taken five walks while striking out 21 times. Hiura will be a big out for Tacoma’s pitching staff to focus on throughout the series.

KEEP IT GOING: Tacoma returns home for their first homestand of the second half. The Rainiers played extremely well at Cheney Stadium in the first half of the season, going 26-13 overall. They didn’t lose a single series at home in the first half, going 6-1-0 in their seven homestands. Tacoma will look to match their good play at home in the first half and carry it into a strong second half of the season.

A LITTLE MISLEADING: The Rainiers are coming off the first six-game series of the second half in which they went 2-4 at Sugar Land. Despite losing the series to the first half champions of the Pacific Coast League, Tacoma played well enough to win the series. They led two games late that ended up being lost, falling to 37-4 when leading after 7 innings and 39-2 when leading after eight innings. Both of those late leads slipped away when Brett de Geus entered the game, who went 0-2 with two blown saves in the series. The right-hander allowed eight earned runs on eight hits and two home runs over his lone inning between Thursday and Saturday’s games, walking two batters along the way. His ERA raised from 4.79 to 7.89 last week as he blew his third and fourth save opportunities of the season. de Geus still leads the team and is tied for fourth in the Pacific Coast League with seven saves on the season and will look to bounce back this week against the Bees.

STAY HOT: Jonatan Clase and Michael Papierski have swung hot bats against Salt Lake this year and will look to keep it going this series. Through seven games against the Bees, Clase is hitting .400 (10-for-25) with three doubles and a triple, driving in two runs while taking two walks compared to four strikeouts. Papierski is hitting .350 (7-for-20) with a double, home run and six runs driven in through six games. On the pitching side, Carlos Vargas, Kirby Snead and Emerson Hancock have had success against Salt Lake’s hitters. Vargas had thrown 4.2 scoreless innings in five relief appearances, allowing just two hits and two walks while striking out three. Snead has also not allowed a run in two innings of work, allowing one hit compared to two strikeouts. In two starts, Hancock is 1-0 with a 1.50 ERA, allowing two earned runs on eight hits and six walks while striking out nine over 12.0 innings.

AGAINST SALT LAKE: The Rainiers and Bees will meet for their third series of the year, with Tacoma currently leading the season series by two games, at 7-5 entering play tonight. In their 12 games this year, the two teams have scored the exact same number of runs, each with 56. Tacoma is actually getting out-hit by Salt Lake through their 12 games played, as the Rainiers are hitting .234 (89-for-380) and the Bees are hitting .251 (99-for-394).

SHORT HOPS: Aside from the first game of the year on March 29, Tacoma has started each month so far with a loss, losing on April 2 to Salt Lake, May 1 to Sacramento and June 1 to the River Cats as well; tonight will be their first home game to start a month since the season opener against Oklahoma City…since rejoining Tacoma on Tuesday, Tyler Locklear is hitting .167 (4-for-24) with a double, home run, three runs batted in and two walks compared to 12 strikeouts.