Salt Lake Bees: Rainiers snap Bees' win streak

Things started off well for the Salt Lake Bees on Wednesday night at Spring Mobile Ballpark. They jumped out to an early lead and extended their streak of shutout innings against the Tacoma Rainiers to 13 over three games, allowing just two hits along the way.

"That's pretty amazing because they are a good hitting team," said Bees manager Bobby Mitchell. "As they showed."

Tacoma's bats eventually came to life with four extra-base hits to ignite a momentum shift.

It altered the outcome and lifted Tacoma to an 8-6 victory, snapping a five-game winning streak by Pacific Coast League-leading Salt Lake.

The Bees took a 1-0 advantage in the first inning when Chris Pettit hit an RBI single.

It stayed that way until the third when the teams exchanged scores.

Tacoma pulled even on a solo homer by Bryan LaHair and Salt Lake regained its edge on Brandon Wood's two-out, RBI single.

Two innings later, though, the Rainiers reigned. They pulled ahead on a two-run double by Callix Crabbe and followed it up with an RBI single from Jerry Owens.

Tacoma added four more runs over the next two innings to build an 8-2 lead.

Salt Lake City native Chris Shelton opened the outburst with a run-scoring single in the sixth. Prentice Redman added an RBI triple in the seventh. A sacrifice fly and a bases-loaded walk produced two more runs.

Down but not completely out, the Bees battled back after the seventh-inning stretch to make things interesting. Following the break, they scored four times to climb back into contention.

The comeback bid began with a two-run single by Freddy Sandoval and an RBI double from Pettit in the seventh. Terry Evans doubled in the eighth to bring in another score.

It wasn't enough, though, to overcome the deficit.

Salt Lake stranded four base runners over the two innings, leaving the Bees two runs short of pulling even.

"I thought we did a good job of coming back and battling," said Mitchell. "We just fell a little short. We had our chances."

The series and homestand concludes tonight at 6:35. Salt Lake RHP Mike McDonald (3-1, 4.50 ERA) and Tacoma RHP Doug Fister (0-0, 2.08 ERA) are the scheduled starters.

GAME NOTES: The attendance was 4,159 … Bee starter Sean O'Sullivan (2-1) took the loss … Salt Lake outhit Tacoma, 12-9.

E-mail: dfacer@desnews.com