Salt Lake Bees: Young pitcher leads Bees to victory over Las Vegas

SALT LAKE CITY — Will Smith is the youngest player on the Salt Lake roster, but the 20-year-old accomplished something Monday no other Bee has been able to do this season.

He made it more than seven innings on the pitcher's mound.

Smith's strong, 8 2/3-innings outing led the Bees to a 7-4 victory over the Las Vegas 51s at Spring Mobile Ballpark.

In the process, Salt Lake improved its PCL Pacific North-leading record to 33-29 — which marks the first time the Bees have been four games above .500 this year.

While Las Vegas scored four runs off of Smith, only one was earned. The other three runs were courtesy of Bees fielding errors, including an error in the ninth that cost Smith a complete game.

"You're always told to finish what you start," said Smith of coming one out away from the complete game. "I sure wanted to, but I was getting up to too many pitches, and we got a strong enough bullpen that we got enough confidence to come in a shut it down like they did tonight."

Rich Thompson earned the save by getting the final out.

He didn't quite get his first career complete game as a pro, but Smith was pleased to earn a victory after going 1-4 in his first five decisions at the Triple-A level.

"I just had confidence tonight," Smith said. "I said I was 1-and-4 and I was tired of losing. That was it for me. So I went out there with a ton of confidence and said I'm gonna get every hitter out with this pitch, and if its not that pitch, its the next. I just kept that rolling and, shoot, it got me into the ninth inning."

Smith said it was his best game as a pro.

"Everything was kinda working tonight. You gotta love those nights," he said.

His manager certainly agreed.

"He was throwing really well," said Bees manager Bobby Mitchell. "He spotted his fastball well and threw some good curve balls to keep them off balance. He threw a really good game against a really good hitting team."