Salt Lake Bees: Rodriguez lifts Bees over 51s

It was a cold night at Franklin Covey Field.

So chilly, in fact, that only 2,732 fans braved the conditions — and many of them came disguised as empty seats.

The coolness permeated the bats as well in Salt Lake's 1-0 win over Las Vegas.

Fortunately for the Bees, Sean Rodriguez warmed up. The second baseman broke a scoreless tie in the seventh inning with a solo homer to produce the game's lone score.

"He's focused and he's come up with some big home runs for us lately. He really has," said Salt Lake manager Bobby Mitchell, who acknowledged it was a tough night for the players. "You can tell by the low scoring game pretty much how the weather affects hitters. And the pitching was good."

The Bees improved to 12-1 on the season despite finishing with a season-low three hits — two from Rodriguez, including the game-winning home run.

The blast came against former Salt Lake pitcher Greg Jones. He relieved Las Vegas starter Jon Meloan, who blanked the Bees over the first six innings.

"It was really, really cold out there," said Rodriguez, who is from Miami and has very little playing experience in cool conditions. "He threw me a fastball. I was just happy. It put us on the board."

Rodriguez was especially pleased to back Salt Lake starter Shane Loux.

"He threw awesome today," said Rodriguez.

Loux improved to 3-0 and lowered his earned-run-average to 0.46 after throwing shutout innings. He struck out six and gave up only four hits.

"I didn't know exactly what to think when I went out to warm up and it was literally snowing. I'm from Phoenix and I never played in snow. But after about the second inning it got pretty nice and I warmed up a little bit. It was like any other game and it worked out for us."

Loux, who didn't play last season and had Tommy John surgery in 2005, said he just wanted to pitch competitively this year. The early success, he explained, is a bonus.

"I didn't know if I was ever going to play again," said Loux. "So I'm enjoying it for everything it's worth."

The series continues today at 6:35 p.m. Salt Lake RHP Kasey Olenberger (1-1, 4.15 ERA) and Las Vegas LHP Eric Stults (1-1, 5.79 ERA) are the scheduled starters.