Salt Lake Bees: Fireworks show is early as Bees blast away at Sky Sox

SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake Bees, for whatever reasons, have not fared well this season at home in front of large crowds. Entering Saturday night's home game against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox at Spring Mobile Ballpark, the Bees were just 2-7 in front of home crowds larger than 10,000 this year.

But that big-crowd jinx wasn't a problem this time.

Salt Lake put together its most dominating performance of the season, pounding the Sky Sox 17-1 on Pioneer Day in front of 15,514 baseball/fireworks fans.

"That was an excellent night to have a game like that," said Bees manager Bobby Mitchell. "We haven't done really well in front of big crowds this year, especially at home. But that wasn't the case tonight. The crowd was into it and they had a good time."

The win was Salt Lake's fifth in its last seven games as they inch closer to the .500 mark on the season. The Bees are now 49-51 on the year exactly 100 games into the 144-game season.

The Bees actually fell behind early, as the Sky Sox scored a first inning run off of starter Fernando Rodriguez. But Rodriguez settled down and gave up just that lone run in seven innings to improve his record to 2-4 on the year.

The Bees bats, meanwhile, were on fire. Shortstop Luis Figueroa got things started with a solo home run to right in the first inning. Salt Lake went ahead for good in the second inning on a two-out, two-run single by catcher Ryan Budde.

In all, the Bees scored at least one run in each of the first five innings to take a 12-1 lead and the Sky Sox — who downed Salt Lake 12-1 on Friday night — had no comeback in them. The Bees then scored four more runs in the bottom of the seventh and another in the eighth, just for good measure.

Center fielder Peter Bourjos finished with five hits on the night and Figueroa and first baseman Mark Trumbo each added four. The Bees pounded 21 hits as a team against five over-matched Sky Sox pitchers.

"Today was just one of those days," said Figueroa. "I felt really good today and swung the bat really good."

The same two teams will play the third game of the four-game set today at 2 p.m. Salt Lake is scheduled to start Tim Kiely (2-2, 9.21 ERA) against Colorado Springs lefty Greg Smith (1-3, 5.56).

BEES WAX: Salt Lake's 11-run loss Friday was its largest of the season. The Bees had lost by 10 runs on two previous occasions earlier in the season. ... The Bees are now 11-7 on Saturdays this season. Sunday is the only other day they own a winning record, at 8-5. ... Bourjos' torrid July continues. He went 5-for-6 on Saturday night and is now a league-best 45-for-96 (.467) for the month.

e-mail: lojo@desnews.com