July 18: Cliff Lee, now the ace of the Philadelphia Rebels (after the trade of Roy Halladay), and the rest of Ronald Melkonian’s squad traveled to Central California and saw Lee pitch dominant ball for eight innings (one hit, no runs allowed). Would he be able to finish out the masterpiece?
Lee, who had thrown a 14-strikeout, two-hit shutout of the Pottsylvania Creepers his previous time out, carried his success over into the high-profile matchup with .45s ace Jered Weaver. Through three innings, Lee was perfect and Weaver had yet to allow a run on two Rebels hits.
Andre Ethier changed that for the visitors. He got a hold of a 1-0 fastball from Weaver leading off the fourth and buried it in the right-center field bleachers for a 1-0 Rebels lead. Adrian Gonzalez, sensing Weaver was upset from leaving his previous pitch up in the zone, lined a shot through the pitcher’s legs and into center field for a hit. Weaver settled down, however, striking out Torii Hunter and popping up Dustin Ackley. But Mike Aviles, playing in place of the injured Alex Rodriguez, seemingly stole some of A-Rod’s magic and launched a ball just over the left-center field wall for a 3-0 Philly lead! That wasn’t all. Matt Wieters stepped up next and joined the party with a bomb down the right-field line.
Four runs on three homers in one inning quieted the Central California crowd, and they wouldn’t have much to cheer for most of the game. Lee allowed his first base runner on a Hunter Pence single in the bottom of the fourth, but he was perfect from then until hitting Pence with a pitch in the seventh. Neither time did the .45s make anything of their chances.
Jeff Niemann had replaced Weaver by the top of the eighth, but apparently he wanted to join the whiplash party: the first batter of the Rebel eighth, Ethier, put one in the seats in almost exactly the same spot as Wieters’ home run.
Lee entered the bottom of the ninth having thrown 93 pitches and allowed just the two runners, and he had a 5-0 lead. Was there any question he would finish it out?
Maybe the question was raised by his fatigued left arm. Chris Iannetta, who had entered the game on defense in the top of the ninth, drew a walk, the first of the day from Lee. Michael Bourn slapped a single down the right field line to move Iannetta to third. Pence just got a piece of one and hit a bounding ball to Gonzalez, but the Gold Glove first baseman couldn’t handle it! The first run of the day for the .45s put them in “slam range”, and they had two on with no one out. The crowd that was left started raising a ruckus to get into Lee’s head. Dan Uggla had a productive at-bat, grounding to Gonzalez to move Bourn and Pence to third and second, respectively.
Up came Matt Holliday. Behind him loomed the heart of the Central California batting order in Pablo Sandoval and Prince Fielder. The prospects looked bright for the home team. Holliday didn’t disappoint, hitting a ground ball just out of Ackley’s reach at second to score both Bourn and Pence! Just like that, the Rebel lead had been cut to 5-3, making it a save situation. Enter closer Jose Valverde to face the Panda. If he could reach safely, Fielder would come up as the potential winning run.
But, alas, Sandoval did one of the things he’s “good” at: hitting into double plays. Valverde’s second offering was a tailor-made twin-killing right at Jeter. The Rebels escaped with a win, ensuring they would stay within five games of division-leading St. Francis. While not finishing like he had hoped, Lee got the win to move to 9-5 with a 3.58 ERA.
In other BARB action:
LOS ANGELES 15, ST. FRANCIS 2
WP: Aaron Harang (2-5, 5.60)
LP: Brett Myers (7-7, 3.77)
The Wolverines, who were blasted by the Friars a couple of times earlier in the season, exacted their revenge on the road. They scored five in the first and four in the third, along with one in the seventh, two in the eighth and three in the ninth, to halt the Central Division leaders and move out of the cellar for the first time since early-April. Aaron Harang, just off the disabled list, allowed three hits and four walks in six scoreless innings. New acquisition Homer Bailey gave up two runs in the bottom of the ninth, but the game was out of reach long before that. Starlin Castro was the leading LA hitter with three base knocks (including a home run) in four at-bats, three runs and three RBI.
WORCESTER 5, BROOKLYN 3
WP: Brandon Morrow (3-1, 4.71)
LP: Rafael Perez (0-4, 5.19)
SV: Rivera (19)
The defending BARB champions, hanging on to hope in the East, broke Brooklyn’s league season-high 11-game winning streak with a comeback in Worcester. The Elims actually jumped out to a lead with single runs in the fourth and fifth off Justin Verlander (including a Mark Teixeira homer), but the Moabs put up three in the sixth to knock out Worcester starter Wandy Rodriguez. Brandon Morrow entered and pitched two and two-thirds innings of hitless relief with six strikeouts as his offense tied it in the sixth and scored two un-earned runs in the eighth to take the lead for good. Despite the loss, the Moabs are still tied for the best record in the league and four games ahead of second place in their division.
POTTSYLVANIA 4, YUMA 3 (15)
WP: Carlos Marmol (1-3, 2.22)
LP: Matt Thornton (5-3, 3.48)
SV: Samardzija (3)
Chris Carpenter went 10 innings for the second time this season, allowing two runs (one earned) on six hits, but he was in showered and home by the time this one finished. No one scored from the third until the 12th (when both teams scored once), and it was scoreless again until Hideki Matsui’s one-out homer in the top of the 15th inning. Typically wild Jeff Samardzija entered and pitched a perfect 15th for the save. Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena also homered for the Creepers.
AC/BC 3, NEW ENGLAND 1
WP: Clayton Kershaw (7-5, 2.57)
LP: Alexi Ogando (2-4, 3.50)
SV: Okajima (2)
New England traveled to Anaheim with designs on moving to within three games of the West lead, but they couldn’t solve Clayton Kershaw. The lefty struck out 10 over seven innings, allowing one un-earned run on two hits and three walks, and David Ortiz hit a two-run homer and scored the third run in the AC/BC victory.
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