Bees Rally for Six-Run Ninth to Stun Isotopes

The Salt Lake Bees stunned the Albuquerque Isotopes for their first win of the second half of the season on Thursday evening, using a six-run ninth inning comeback to escape with the victory by a final score of 8-7.

After tallying just a lone run in their matinee loss on Wednesday, the Bees offense continued to run cold at the plate for most of the night, failing to solve the puzzle that was Isotopes starter Peter Lambert. Through his first six innings of work, the former second round draft pick by the Rockies retired 18 of the 19 batters that he faced, with the only slip-up coming on a solo home run off the bat of Keston Hiura to give Salt Lake its first run of the night. The Bees finally started to show some signs of life in the seventh after they loaded the bases with just one out in the inning to chase Lambert from the game, but after Elliot Soto drove in a run with a groundout against new pitcher Dugan Darnell, Chad Wallach was called out on strikes to nip the potential rally in the bud before it could get off the ground.

Who else?

Keston Hiura crushes his sixth homer in a Bees uniform to give us our first run of the day! pic.twitter.com/SXZkfGNfZf

— Salt Lake Bees (@SaltLakeBees) June 28, 2024

This brought things to the ninth inning, where Hiura once again got things going for the Bees with a 448-foot blast to center field off of reliever Juan Hillman for his second homer of the night and his seventh in just 13 games since joining the team on June 11. After this, Salt Lake kicked things into high gear, with back-to-back singles by Charles Leblanc and Jordyn Adams and a walk by Wallach loading the bases with one out once again and chasing Hillman in favor of Matt Koch. Unlike the previous instance, however, the Bees managed to capitalize in a big way, as Jack López came off the bench as a pinch hitter and lined a double into the gap in left center to plate two more runs and bring the go-ahead run to the plate. A strikeout by Zach Humphreys brought the team down to its final out, but one batter later, Kyren Paris came through in the clutch with the big hit, smoking a 1-0 cutter from Koch right up the middle to score both baserunners and tie the game up at seven apiece. Paris ended up taking second base on the throw on this play, which set the stage for Michael Stefanic to play the hero, with the Bees third baseman capping off the six-run inning with a line drive base hit into left field to drive in Paris and give Salt Lake its first lead of the series.

MICHAEL STEFANIC CAPS OFF A SIX-RUN NINTH TO GIVE US THE LEAD! pic.twitter.com/pjB6BCWmxh

— Salt Lake Bees (@SaltLakeBees) June 28, 2024

The task of finishing things off in the bottom half of the inning went to Bryan Shaw, who quickly recorded the first two outs of the frame on easy ground balls. Jimmy Herron singled with two outs to give Albuquerque a chance for some late-game heroics of its own, but Shaw quickly dashed any remaining hopes on the next plate appearance, punching out Connor Kaiser to lock down the improbable comeback victory for the Bees.

Salt Lake will now try to keep the momentum from this win rolling into the fourth game of the series against the Isotopes on Friday night, with Brett Kerry currently set to make the start opposite Peyton Battenfield for first pitch at 6:35 p.m.