The Bees sting the 'Cats

It looked mighty bleak for the Salt Lake Bees on Wednesday night in their opening game of their best-of-five PCL Pacific Conference championship series against the Sacramento River Cats.

They'd already blown a four-run lead. Then they found themselves down by two entering the bottom of the 10th. To make matters worse, the Bees bats had gone cold. They hadn't scored since the fourth inning — and had just one hit from the fourth through the ninth, in fact.

Apparently all of that was just to make things exciting for the diehard fans at Franklin Covey Field.

Five consecutive singles — culminating in a two-run hit by Brandon Wood — gave the Bees three runs and a dramatic, come-from-behind 9-8 victory in 10 innings.

"This team is not going to give up," said Wood.

Bees manager Brian Harper agreed.

"How many times have you seen that? Our guys just don't quit," Harper said.

Actually, it was the ninth time this season the Bees had come from behind after the eighth inning to win a game.

As for the playoffs, it's one down, two to go — with four more chances for the Bees. Game 2 will be tonight at 7 at home before moving to Sacramento for the remainder of the series.

Halfway through the game it certainly looked like the Bees wouldn't need such a dramatic finish to take a 1-0 lead in the series. With former Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon making his final injury rehab start for the Bees, Salt Lake opened up a 6-2 lead in the bottom of the fourth inning. The Bees still led by three runs entering the eighth.

But Sacramento scored a pair of runs in the eighth off Bees reliever Alex Serrano to close the gap to one. Salt Lake was one out from victory in the ninth when the River Cats' Lou Merloni got a broken-bat single to drive home the tying run against Bees reliever Greg Jones.

The River Cats then took their first lead since the second inning in the top of the 10th with two more runs off of Jones.

But Salt Lake's bottom of the 10th went like this:

Tommy Murphy hit a single to left.

Mike Eylward hit a single to left.

Terry Evans hit a single to left, scoring Murphy.

Nick Gorneault lays down a perfect bunt — in an attempt to sacrifice — but instead gets a single out of it to load the bases.