PCL baseball: Youthful Bees held to 5 hits in loss to Rainiers

SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake Bees manager Bobby Mitchell knew that his young ballclub would be inconsistent on offense, especially to start the 2010 season.

The first two games at Spring Mobile Ballpark have proven Mitchell prophetic. The Bees, who pounded the ball on Friday night, could get little going on Saturday. Salt Lake managed only five hits in a 6-2 loss to the Tacoma Rainiers.

That came on the heels of a 17-hit, 11-run outburst on Friday night when all nine Bees batters got at least one hit and scored at least one run.

"We didn't do a lot offensively, obviously, until late," said Mitchell. "We knew there would be growing pains. We're still getting situated and we've had a flu bug going around the team."

Salt Lake fell to 3-7 on the year with the loss, while Tacoma improved to 5-5.

The Bees were behind 6-0 before managing a mini-rally in the eighth inning. Michael Ryan's two-out double drove in a pair to ensure Salt Lake wouldn't be blanked. But the Bees went down quietly in the ninth to increase their current losing streak to three games.

"We're kind of trying to find the identity of our team, both pitching and offensively. And we were only one game out of first (in the PCL's Pacific Northern Division) entering the game," Mitchell said.

It's true that all four teams in the Bees' division started the day under .500. But the Bees know it's far too early in the 144-game season to start paying too much attention to the standings.

If there was a highlight to the game for Salt Lake it would be that starting pitcher Marco Albano actually had a solid outing despite the losing cause. He gave up just two runs in his first six innings but was responsible for the first two runs in the Rainiers' three-run seventh. Tacoma third baseman Matt Mangini hit a two-run home run off Bees reliever Francisco Rodriguez to give the Rainiers a 5-0 cushion. From there it was too high a hill for the Bees to climb.

The third game of the four-game set against the Rainiers will be today at 2 p.m. Bees' 20-year old lefty Trevor Reckling (1-0, 3.18 ERA) will make his home debut against Tacoma's David Pauley (0-2, 3.27 ERA).