Stingers slip past River Cats

Luke Allen's pinch-hit single in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the Stingers a 3-2 win over the Sacramento River Cats on Sunday afternoon at Franklin Covey Field.

The win kept Salt Lake a game back of first place Tacoma in the PCL's Northern Division with 15 games remaining for both teams.

Stingers starter Jake Woods worked five and two-third innings, giving up a pair of runs on five hits, but got no decision.

"His fast-ball command was good," Stingers manager Dino Ebel said. "He worked both sides of the plate. He threw about 70 pitches today, and next time he'll do 80 or 90."

Woods threw only five pitches in the third and followed that up with a nine-pitch fourth.

Sacramento got on the board first when Andrew Beattie walked to lead off the second inning and advanced to second on a pickoff attempt when Stinger first baseman Robb Quinlan's throw to second sailed into left field. Beattie advanced to third on a hit by Shawn Garrett and scored on Charles Thomas' RBI single.

Salt Lake answered in the third inning when Adam Pavkovich scored from third base on Brian Specht's double through the pitcher's leg. The Stingers followed that up in the fourth when Quinlan singled, advanced to third on Jeff Mathis' single and scored on Nick Gourneault's single to give Salt Lake a 2-1 lead.

Sacramento added a run in the sixth to tie the game 2-2 and had two runners aboard with no outs in both the seventh and eighth innings but could not score a run. In both innings, batters tried to lay down a bunt, and in both innings Salt Lake's catcher and pitcher threw out the lead runner at third base.

"That's something we practice everyday," Ebel said. "Our defense came up huge for us today."

The River Cats stranded three baserunners in the seventh and two more in the eighth.

In the Salt Lake ninth, Quinlan got aboard, driving a 3-0 pitch into center field. Mathis failed to bunt him over and struck out swinging. Gourneault then lined a shot to left, moving Quinlan to second, and Curtis Pride then walked to load the bases.

Sacramento then brought in closer Jairo Garcia, who worked the count to 2-2 on Allen before delivering a fast ball that Allen drove into shallow right field, scoring Quinlan and ending the game.

"Huge, clutch hit," Ebel said. "Luke needed that. He's been struggling of late, but showed good patience, waiting for a pitch out over the plate."

Ebel also praised his other hitters, saying he wasn't afraid to give Quinlan the green light on a 3-0 count. "Robb's been swinging the bat well . . . He saw a pitch he liked and drove it to get aboard. Curtis was also patient, showing good patience, too, to get that walk to load the bases."

With only six games remaining at home, Ebel isn't too worried. "We do well on the road, too. But we've got to go day-by-day, doing what we do. If we get help, we get help, but we can't let down."

NOTES: Attendance at Sunday's game was 4,567 . . . LHP Joe Saunders (3-3) will start tonight's game against Sacramento and RHP Chris Hunter (0-1) will face Juan Cruz (4-1) on Tuesday.

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E-mail: jringwood@desnews.com