VISALIA, CA - The Visalia Rawhide used huge rallies in the third and eighth innings and received five dominant innings from Arizona Diamondbacks second-ranked prospect Jon Duplantier to rout the San Jose Giants 12-4 in the final regular season matchup of the two teams this year.
VISALIA, CA - The Visalia Rawhide used huge rallies in the third and eighth innings and received five dominant innings from Arizona Diamondbacks second-ranked prospect Jon Duplantier to rout the San Jose Giants 12-4 in the final regular season matchup of the two teams this year.
Duplantier (W, 6-2) pitched his second shutdown start of the season. He struck out nine Giants hitters, which tied his career-best, and walked three while allowing only one hit. He beat the Giants for the second time in the past calendar week to win his second decision in a row and drop his ERA with Visalia (65-65/29-31) to 1.69.
San Jose (58-72, 28/32) started Domenic Mazza (L, 0-1) and he labored through 5.1 innings, allowing seven runs on 12 hits, including a home run to Henry Castillo and doubles to Grant Heyman, Castillo, and Jason Morozowski. The Rawhide scored against Mazza in four of the six innings where he took the mound, with the majority of their runs coming on the Castillo three-run homer in the second.
The Giants turned to Heath Slatton, who got out of the sixth inning with minimal damage and pitched a scoreless seventh before the Rawhide batted around in the eighth and plated five runs against him, including a steal of home by Ben DeLuzio while Mark Karaviotis was swiping second base, an RBI single by Morozowski, a run-scoring base hit by Castillo, and a two run Heyman home run.
The Giants scored the bulk of their offense in the sixth inning off of Keegan Long, who had come on to relieve Duplantier. Ryan Howard started the inning by hitting a grounder to third that Castillo botched, putting the leadoff man on. Bryan Reynolds followed with a single to bring up Jonah Arenado, who has been hot in August. Long fell behind Arenado and the third baseman doubled down the right field line to score Howard and move Reynolds to third. Dillon Dobson drove home both Reynolds and Arenado with a ground ball single up the middle and, after Heath Quinn singled Dobson to second, Long was lifted without having retired a hitter.
The Rawhide's lead had been cut to 6-3 and Shelley Duncan called upon left-hander Colin Poche, who worked out of a similar jam two nights before in relief of Sam Lewis. Poche struck out the next three men he faced in order to strand both runners and hold the tying run at the plate for the Giants.
Every hitter in the Visalia lineup had a hit while Karaviotis, Castillo, and Heyman led the way with three hit nights. Fernery Ozuna, Morozowski, and DeLuzio all added two hits apiece and Castillo drove home a game-high four RBIs. DeLuzio extended his current hitting streak to 13 games and is hitting .350 since joining Visalia 24 games ago.
With ten games remaining in the second half, the Rawhide are now tied for first with the Stockton Ports and the Modesto Nuts in the North Division second half standings. Visalia plays seven of the ten games against Modesto and three against Stockton.
Visalia will begin their final home series of the regular season tomorrow night as they host the Modesto Nuts (A-Adv, Seattle Mariners. The clubs will match up RHP Bo Takahashi (5-9, 4.87) against Modesto RHP Nathan Bannister (7-6. 4.40) with first pitch slated for 7 PM. Tickets are still available on Rawhidebaseball.com.
