Bees Late Rally Comes Up Short Against Chihuahuas

The Salt Lake Bees lost their second game in a row to the El Paso Chihuahuas on Thursday evening, battling back from an early deficit but ultimately falling by a final score of 7-5.

After scoring seven unanswered runs in the second game of the series on Wednesday, El Paso picked up right where it left off on Thursday, sprinting out of the gates to an early lead. The scoring kicked off in the third inning for the Chihuahuas, with the team getting on the board first on a solo home run to dead center field from Bryce Johnson off of Salt Lake starter John O’Reilly. This advantage would grow further just one inning later, as Clay Dungan brought in another on an RBI double and Brett Sullivan picked up a run-scoring single three batters later to chase O’Reilly from the game and make it 3-0 in favor of the home team.

From here, the Bees finally got their bats going, breaking their 10-inning scoring drought in a big way in the top of the sixth. After El Paso starter Nabil Crismatt worked around a leadoff single by Chad Wallach to get the next two outs, Salt Lake quickly got some more traffic on the basepaths, with Chad Stevens reaching on a single and Landon Wallace drawing a walk to load the bases. This brought up leadoff hitter Gustavo Campero, who took a 2-2 sinker and lined it down the line in left field to score a pair of runs and bring the Bees back to within one. This drove Crismatt from the game, and when reliever Paul Fry came on to try to put out the fire, Kyren Paris swiftly met him with a line-drive single up the middle to plate two more and give the Bees their first lead of the night.

Cardiac Kyren ❄️

Paris plates two more with a base hit up the middle and we've got our first lead of the night! pic.twitter.com/zjNZqYYqQi

— Salt Lake Bees (@SaltLakeBees) September 13, 2024

Much like on Wednesday, though, this advantage would not hold, as the Chihuahuas quickly responded and jumped right back in front for good. These blows came against Salt Lake reliever Ivan Armstrong in the bottom of the sixth, with Connor Hollis scoring from third on a two-out wild pitch to tie the game and Brett Sullivan driving in the go-ahead run on the next pitch with his fourth hit of the night. Some insurance came in the eighth with El Paso scored two more on a misplay in the outfield by Campero and Landon Wallace, and after a brief rally in the top of the ninth that saw the Bees score one more to bring it back within two, Austin Davis punched out Elliot Soto to dash Salt Lake’s hopes and secure the win for the Chihuahuas.