Salt Lake Bees: Punchless Bees fall to Sky Sox in extra innings

Brandon Wood, the all-time leader in home runs in Salt Lake Bees history, was in Anaheim on Saturday blasting a homer for the parent Angels against the Yankees.

Brad Coon, Salt Lake's hottest hitter of late, was in the Spring Mobile Ballpark clubhouse, too sick to play on Saturday night.

Injuries and other call-ups to the majors had the Bees' formerly potent offensive attack not very intimidating.

The result was just six hits for the home team in a 3-2 loss in 10 innings against the division-rival Colorado Springs Sky Sox in front of 10,040 fans.

"We had six hits," lamented Bees manager Bobby Mitchell after his team fell to 46-44 on the year. "You're not going to score many runs with six hits."

For much of the game it looked like neither team would score any runs.

In fact, it was scoreless when the fans sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the middle of the seventh inning.

But the Bees finally drew first blood. Salt Lake second baseman Sean Rodriguez was able to score the first run of the game on a sacrifice fly by Ryan Budde — but only after knocking the ball out of the mitt of Sky Sox catcher Paul Phillips' on a play at the plate in the bottom of the seventh. The Bees then took a 2-0 lead on a two-out single by Gary Patchett.

Salt Lake starter Brad Knox retired the first two batters in the eighth inning, but the Sky Sox rallied to knot the score.

"(Knox) did a great job," said Mitchell. "He kept us in the game."

The game remained 2-2 until the top of the 10th when Colorado Springs Christian Colonel hit a two-out RBI single off of Bees reliever Bobby Mosebach that proved to be the winning run.

With the victory the Sky Sox improved to 51-38 — 5.5 games ahead of the Bees in the PCL's Pacific North Division. The same two teams will meet today at 2 p.m. in the final game before the Triple-A All-Star break.

BEES WAX: Pitcher Shane Loux has been activated by the Angels after making four rehab starts for the Bees. To make room for Loux on their roster the Angels sent reliever Rich Thompson back to the Bees.

Thompson has appeared in 12 games for the Angels this season and 12 with the Bees. ... Bees pitcher Rudy Seanez was placed on the disabled list on Saturday with a right abductor strain. Salt Lake has now had 109 roster moves on the season. At this point a year ago the Bees had made 102 transactions. ... The Bees have now gone 34 consecutive games without scoring in double figures. The last time they scored 10 or more runs was on June 4. The longest stretch without scoring double digit runs was 40 games in 2003.

e-mail: lojo@desnews.com