Salt Lake Bees: Fall to Fresno in Brandon Wood's return to team

SALT LAKE CITY — Brandon Wood, the all-time leader in home runs in Salt Lake Bees history, was back in uniform at Spring Mobile Ballpark Monday for the first time during the 2010 season.

Despite having Wood in the lineup and playing third base, the Bees fell to the Fresno Grizzlies, 7-6, in the final outing in their four-game set.

Officially, Wood is on rehab assignment from the Los Angeles Angels while recovering from a right hip flexor injury that landed him on the disabled list a week ago.

Unofficially, Wood is back at the triple-A level trying to get the hitting stroke back that helped him to be a Triple-A All-Star last season. Wood won the job as the Angels' starting third baseman during spring training, but he's been in a season-long slump. He was hitting just .156 in 39 games with the Halos.

The Angels can't simply send Wood full-time to Salt Lake since he is out of options and he would have to clear waivers to be demoted. He's too valuable of a prospect for the Angels to do that, so his opportunity to come back to work with Bees hitting coach Jim Eppard had to be on a rehab assignment.

"I need to get back to being me," said Wood. "I've tried so many different things from the first of the year to this point that it clogged up my brain. I've been thinking about too many things."

So Wood plans on using his time with the Bees — probably a week or so, but no longer than 20 days by rule — to return to the form that made him one of the top prospects in all of baseball.

"(I need to) stop thinking and just play," said Wood. "Have fun playing this game and produce and not worry about results."

Wood's slow start — combined with Los Angeles come out of the gate slowly — made the first two months of the season a challenge.

"It was definitely frustrating," said Wood. "It was a grind, but having a chance to come here and have at-bats without having the pressure of helping out the big club is going to be a positive and good for me."

Wood actually had the chance to give the Bees a third consecutive walk-off victory in the bottom of the ninth, as he came up with two outs and the tying base runner at first. A homer would have ended the game with another dramatic Salt Lake victory. Instead, his line drive to center field was caught for the game's final out.

BEES WAX: Infielder Hainley Statia was placed on the disabled list with a right elbow strain. To take his spot on the roster, the Angels promoted Abel Nieves from Double-A Arkansas ... Salt Lake committed a season-high four errors in the win on Sunday, but was back to playing strong defense on Monday with an errorless game ... Attendance was 8,234.

e-mail: lojo@desnews.com