Salt Lake Bees: Minus stars, Bees still down Sky Sox

With two more players being called up to the Los Angeles Angels, the Salt Lake Bees are — once again — doing what winning ball clubs do.

They're finding ways to win despite the absence of all-star players.

Friday night, with Brandon Wood and Bobby Wilson making the trip to California, the Bees plugged the holes in the lineup and left Spring Mobile Ballpark with an important 5-3 win over the Colorado Sky Sox.

"We're going to have to really do the little things correctly," Salt Lake manager Bobby Mitchell said.

That certainly happened against the Sky Sox as Salt Lake (46-43) scattered 11 hits and turned four double plays to snag the win for Dan Denham (7-4), with Rafael Rodriguez tossing two scoreless innings to get his third save of the season.

"We need them to go out and play hard every game," Mitchell said. "That's what they did. They really went out (hard.)"

They needed to, especially after falling behind early.

The Sky Sox broke onto the board in the third inning when Denhem picked up a sacrifice bunt and threw wildly to first, sending the ball into the Bees bullpen and allowing Chris Frey to score all the way from first.

Ben Johnson took advantage of a Colorado Springs wild pitch and throwing error to send an Alan Johnson pitch deep into the right field gap for a two-out triple, pushing a pair of Bees across the plate to give Salt Lake a 2-1 lead.

"Whenever you can get two-out RBIs you get a morale boost," Johnson said, "and gets the energy up a little bit."

Colorado Springs reclaimed the lead in the sixth when Dan Ortmeier drilled a Denhem pitch to the gap in right, driving in two.

The Bees loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the sixth, chasing Alan Johnson in the process, and Ryan Budde hit a little dribbler down the third base line which hit the bag and bounced high enough to allow Salt Lake's Ben Johnson to scamper home with the tying run.

Nate Sutton then drew a bases-loaded walk off Colorado Springs reliever Randy Flores to put the Bees back on top 4-3 heading into the seventh.

Salt Lake put runners on the corners with no outs in the seventh and extended its lead when Terry Evans scored on an Adam Pavkovich infield single to short.