Salt Lake Bees win to gain ground on first place

SALT LAKE CITY — Just three weeks ago the Salt Lake Bees appeared hopelessly out of their division title race. They were nine games behind the Tacoma Rainiers after having lost eight of their previous nine games.

But now, with one month remaining in the season, the Bees look like they are right back in the thick of it. Salt Lake's 6-3 victory over the Oklahoma City RedHawks on Wednesday night at Spring Mobile Ballpark — combined with Tacoma's loss at Iowa — leaves the Bees just 3.5 games behind the Rainiers in the PCL's Pacific North standings. Salt Lake has now won 10 of its last 13 outings.

"We still have to keep winning and hope Tacoma falls back a little," said Bees manager Bobby Mitchell. "We got ourselves into a hole and now we are trying to dig out."

Bees starter Fernando Rodriguez got off to a rough start Wednesday, as the RedHawks scored a pair of runs in the first inning. But he settled down to earn his third straight victory, giving up just three runs in five innings with seven strikeouts.

The Bees, aided by a pair of Oklahoma City errors, scored three runs in the second inning to take a 3-2 lead. Salt Lake then scored three more in the third with Michael Ryan's two-run double being the big hit.

"We're just going to go out and try and play baseball like we've been," said Ryan. "We're not looking at the scores. That hasn't really been our motivation, to see if we can catch Tacoma, but if we play good baseball things should work out."

BEES WAX: Oklahoma City has a couple of players with local ties. Longtime Bee Matt Brown and former Cyprus High and College of Eastern Utah star Willie Eyre play for the RedHawks. ... Attendance on Wednesday night was 5,252.

e-mail: lojo@desnews.com