Salt Lake Drops Wednesday Contest to Sacramento in Walk-Off Fashion
The Salt Lake Bees dropped their fifth game in a row on Wednesday evening against Sacramento River Cats, falling in walk-off fashion by the final score of 4-3. After getting their bats going in the latter half of their series-opening loss on Tuesday, the Bees came out of the gates
The Salt Lake Bees dropped their fifth game in a row on Wednesday evening against Sacramento River Cats, falling in walk-off fashion by the final score of 4-3.
After getting their bats going in the latter half of their series-opening loss on Tuesday, the Bees came out of the gates hot on Wednesday, jumping out to an early lead very quickly. The first big swing of the game came in the opening frame, when Keston Hiura stepped up with a man on first and smacked a full-count slider from Sacramento starter Mason Black over the wall in right field for a two-run home run, his second in as many days and his 18th in 32 games with Salt Lake. Immediately after this, Niko Kavadas followed Hiura’s lead with a dinger of his own, making it back-to-back days with a homer for the first baseman and back-to-back longballs for the Bees in the first inning to make it a 3-0 game just five batters in.
We're goin' back-to-back 😎
— Salt Lake Bees (@SaltLakeBees) August 15, 2024
Niko Kavadas follows Hiura with HIS second homer in as many days and we've got a 3-0 lead in the first! pic.twitter.com/0PirLeJfJq
From here, however, the Bees cooled off drastically at the plate, notching just two more hits the rest of the way and none in a 25-batter span between the second and ninth innings. This allowed the River Cats to start chipping away at the early lead, with the hosts starting their comeback effort in the bottom of the fourth against Salt Lake starter Johnny Cueto. After making it through the first third of the game unscathed, Cueto finally made a mistake to the first batter of the frame, with Hunter Bishop pouncing on a 1-1 sinker over the inner half of the plate and crushing it 410 feet out to right field to get Sacramento on the board for the first time. Blake Sabol tripled right after this to keep up the pressure, and after a pair of outs got Cueto on the doorstep of escaping with no further damage, the rehabbing Thairo Estrada managed to just beat out an infield single to bring home the second run of the inning.
The score would hold here throughout the middle innings, with Cueto working through the fifth and Travis MacGregor turning in two solid frames of his own in relief of the righty. The River Cats woke back up in the eighth, though, getting traffic on the bases via a single and a walk and then turning that into the tying run on a two-out wild pitch by new reliever Michael Darrell-Hicks. This brought things to the ninth all leveled up, and after the Bees went down quietly in the top half of the inning, Sacramento did not fail to capitalize on its opportunity to win it, with Jakson Reetz playing the hero with a line-drive base hit up the middle that scored Bishop from second and walked it off for the home team.
The Bees will now try again to snap their five-game losing streak in the third game of the series against the River Cats on Thursday, with Sam Bachman set to take the mound for his second Triple-A start opposite righty Trevor McDonald for first pitch at 7:45 p.m.