Salt Lake Bees start slow, miss opportunities

SALT LAKE CITY—Iowa's Bryan LaHair needed only three pitches to make amends for a poor showing at last month's Home Run Derby, where he only went deep once.

The powerful lefty crushed a towering home run over the left-field wall — his PCL-leading 33rd home run of the season — to give the Cubs an early 2-0 lead. Iowa cruised from there, securing a 7-3 win over Salt Lake.

After winning five in a row at home earlier this month, the Bees have now dropped three of their last four games at Spring Mobile Ballpark.

"This game will turn on you in a hurry," Salt Lake manager Keith Johnson said. "We had some chances and weren't able to execute, and that was the difference tonight."

Brett Jackson went 2-for-5 with two RBIs, while Ryan Flaherty added two hits and scored twice for the Cubs.

Jeff Baisley provided much of the Bees' offense with a two-run double to deep center in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Salt Lake had a chance to cut into Iowa's lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, but failed to come through with the bases loaded. Gil Velazquez worked the count full against Iowa's Blake Parker, who was touching 97 mph on the radar gun, but struck out on a breaking ball in the dirt to end the inning.

That missed opportunity turned out to be Salt Lake's last real scoring chance of the game.

"We had an opportunity, but Parker threw some good pitches to Gil," Johnson said. "With that fastball he has, to throw two good breaking balls was pretty tough. That's just how the ball rolls sometimes."

With regular starter Eric Junge on the disabled list, reliever Anthony Ortega got the start and threw four innings. Barrett Browning relieved him and ate away three frames. Jason Bulger and Ryan Brasier threw an inning each to finish it off.

The four relievers combined to strike out 13 batters.

The Bees and Cubs will play again tonight at 7:05 p.m. at Spring Mobile Ballpark.

Email: mpayne@desnews.com