Win puts Salt Lake Bees back above .500 mark

SALT LAKE CITY — The good news for the Salt Lake Bees is that their roller-coaster season is currently heading upward. The Bees won their fourth consecutive game on Tuesday night at Spring Mobile Ballpark, this time 5-4 against the Portland Beavers. Salt Lake has now won eight of its last 10.

The win improved Salt Lake's record to 52-51 — the first time the Bees have been above .500 since July 4.

The bad news is that the Bees just can't make up any ground on the PCL's Pacific North Division-leading Tacoma Rainiers. Like Salt Lake, the Rainiers have also won four games in a row to remain seven games ahead of the second-place Bees.

Still, just winning — and scoring plenty of runs in the process — has done wonders for the clubhouse mood.

"We're getting hot as a team," said Bees third baseman Nate Sutton, who went 3-for-3 on Tuesday night. "We had been going through a pretty good cold spell as a team (previously). It's kind of a weird thing that the whole team is going through hitting streaks or slumps together this year."

Salt Lake got a two-run single by Paul McAnulty and run-scoring hit from Mark Trumbo as well, but the game-winning run was scored on a Portland error.

The Bees and Beavers were tied 4-4 entering the bottom of the eighth when Terry Evans led the inning off with a single. Sutton was up next and he laid down a sacrifice bunt toward third. The Beavers' third baseman Nick Green fielded the ball cleanly, but his throw to first got past the first baseman and rolled into the Bees' bullpen. Evans ran to third and just kept going toward home where there was a close play at the plate.

Evans was called safe — giving the Bees a 5-4 lead — and the Beavers were not pleased. Portland manager Terry Kennedy, in fact, was thrown out of the game for arguing the call.

"No comment," said Sutton with a smile when asked if he thought Evans was safe.

Bees manager Bobby Mitchell said he couldn't tell whether Evans was safe from his vantage point as the third-base coach.

In any event, the run counted and the Bees had themselves another win after reliever Matt Palmer set the Beavers down in the bottom of the ninth for his first save of the season.

"We're back over .500," said Mitchell. "It was a good ballgame."