A pyrotechnic explosion occurred at Franklin Covey Field, but none of it came off the bats of Salt Lake Bees hitters Friday night.

In a game manager Bobby Mitchell called one of the worst games of the season, the first-place Bees (76-57) lost to Pacific Southern Division doormat Tucson, (57-74) 12-3.

The Sidewinders scored their 12 runs off of 17 hits on the night.

"It think they gave a good effort out there tonight, but we didn't play very well," Mitchell said. "We didn't hit well, we didn't pitch well, we didn't do anything well. But we'll bounce back and get them tomorrow."

Tucson jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on a leadoff triple by Tim Raines, Jr. Justin Upton then hit a double to left, then scored on two wild pitches by starter Nick Adenhart to jump-start the Sidewinders.

Raines would end up being a single short of hitting for the cycle. Brad Coon gave the Bees a jump-start when he ran out a throw at first, then stole second. Bobby Wilson promptly hit a sac fly to advance Coon, and Dee Brown drove him in with an RBI double that was misplayed by center fielder Trent Oeltjen.

Tucson then answered back in the when Phil Avlas hit an RBI single to left field, then Raines hit a sacrifice fly to center field that scored in another run to make it 4-1. Adenhart settled down even with a high pitch count, and only allowed one more run, which came in the fifth inning when a double-play ball went awry and scored in another Tucson run.

Tucson added to its in the top of the sixth, when Raines had a well-hit ball hit the wall in left-center for an RBI double. Oeltjen hit another double to score Raines and put the Sidewinders up 7-1.

Tucson exploded for four runs in the seventh inning and one more in the eighth before the bleeding stopped with Freddy Sandoval crushing a two-run home run to give the 12,043 in attendance something to cheer about other than the post-game fireworks.

BEES NOTES: Olympian Matt Brown blasted a 3-run home run in the bronze medal game against Japan to help bring the U.S. back in the game. The score was 6-4 as of press time. Salt Lake broke its single-season attendance record Friday. The old mark was 474,647. The Bees are now 60-2 when trailing after five innings.

---

E-mail: nnewman@desnews.com