Salt Lake Bees: Sky Sox had too much Moore

SALT LAKE CITY — For more than seven innings on Wednesday night it looked like the Bees were doomed to another low-scoring loss.

Then they rallied.

Jeremy Moore, who instigated the Salt Lake offense all night, reached on a fielder's choice in the bottom of the eighth inning. He promptly stole second base then scored on a bang-bang play at the plate after a single by Efren Navarro. Two batters later, Freddy Sandoval popped a two-run single to give Salt Lake its first lead of the game.

Ryan Kiniry added another RBI single to push the lead to 5-3, which is how it ended.

"It was good to see the ball bounce in our favor for a change," Salt Lake manager Keith Johnson said. "It's been a battle all year for these guys."

Moore provided flashes of excitement even when his teammates were struggling, hitting a ground-rule double in the first inning then driving a stand-up triple to the gap in right-center in the bottom of the sixth.

With the triple — his 18th this year — Moore tied the Salt Lake franchise record for triples in a season. He also jumped into the PCL lead in the category with only five games left to play. His speed and aggressiveness on the base paths set the table for the late-game rally.

"Keith's an aggressive coach, and he's successful more times than not," Moore said. "Tonight we got thrown out a few times at home, but he kept sending us. That's the way you do it. If you're going to win by it, you're going to lose by it also. It turned out pretty good for us tonight."

The Bees' bullpen came up huge in the win, keeping the game close when Salt Lake was behind. Ryan Brasier got out of jams in both the seventh and eighth frames, then Michael Kohn entered to slam the door on the Sky Sox in the ninth.

The Bees and Sky Sox will meet again tonight at 6:35 p.m. at Spring Mobile Ballpark for the final home game of the 2011 season.

email: mpayne@desnews.com