51s Can't Come Through With Big Hits in Tough Loss to Sacramento

Las Vegas 51s @ Sacramento River Cats

April 15, 2015

Matt Bowman @ Braulio Lara

Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Las Vegas	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	0		3	11	0
Sacramento	0	0	0	2	0	2	0	0	X		4	7	0

W: Okert (1-0, 2.08 ERA); L: Bowman (0-2, 9.00 ERA); S: Strickland (2)

MiLB.com Boxscore

The Highlights:

Pitchers

Matt Bowman – 5.1 IP, 6 H, 4 R, BB, 3 SO, HR, HBP, 74 Pitches (48 Strikes), 10 GO
Chase Bradford (0.00 ERA) – 1.1 IP, H, SO, 2 GO, 2 IR – 0 S
Zach Thornton (1.59 ERA) – 1 IP, 2 SO, 1 FO

Batters

Daniel Muno – 1-3, R, RBI (2), 2 BB, SB (2), CS
Dilson Herrera – 2-5, R, 2 SO
Matt Reynolds – 2-4, 2B (2), RBI (3), SF, SO
Kevin Plawecki – 2-4, 3B (1)
Kyle Johnson – 1-4, R, 2B (1), 3 SO

Recap:

The Las Vegas 51s had plenty of opportunities to blow this game open on Wednesday afternoon in Sacramento, but they had trouble getting runners home after they got on base. The 2nd inning is a perfect example of their struggles for the game, as Kevin Plawecki led off with a triple, but the next three batters struck out to leave him stranded there. Those three batters at the bottom of the order – Brandon Allen, Travis Taijeron, and Kyle Johnson – were a big part of the problem, as they combined to go 2-12 with 9 strikeouts during the game, and couldn’t come through in some big spots. Bowman bounced back some from his rough first outing, but he struggled against lefties again in this outing, and so Wally took him out when he got into trouble during the 6th with some lefties coming up. Scott Rice was brought in as the first replacement for Bowman, but he had little control, walking the first two batters and allowing his inherited runner to score – Wally had to bring in Chase Bradford to finish the 6th. After Sacramento got the lead back, they went to their very strong bullpen, and they would shut the 51s down for the last 3 innings, allowing only a walk. The 51s turn to Darin Gorski to try and earn a split in the series finale Thursday night at 10 PM.

Scoring Highlights

Just like with Binghamton on Wednesday afternoon, Las Vegas managed plenty of hits against Sacramento, but couldn’t pick up enough big run scoring hits. Kevin Plawecki led off the 2nd with his first triple of the season, but the next three 51s hitters went down on strikes. (Plaw also picked up a leadoff single in the 4th, the 2nd gif below)

Dilson Herrera picked up this two-out single up the middle in the 3rd.

Matt Reynolds followed with this double to RF, but Dilson would have to be held at 3B on the play, and then both runners were left stranded.

Danny Muno and Dilson Herrera led off the 5th inning with these back-to-back singles, and they’d both come around to score in the frame – Muno scored on a Matt Reynolds sac fly, and then Alex Castellanos tripled home Dilson.

Kyle Johnson hit this one-out double in the 6th and came around to score on a Matt Reynolds sacrifice fly – he was advanced to 3B on Matt Bowman’s first hit of 2015, the 2nd gif below.

Bowman Coverage

Bowman was more efficient and effective in his second start of the year, but he still wasn’t been able to replicate the success he had when he first came up with Las Vegas in 2014. He was still a groundball machine for most of the game (10 groundouts), but he once again struggled against lefties, allowing 4 of his 6 hits and the homerun to lefty batters. That’s 5 extra base hits allowed to lefties in two starts, compared to the 0 he has allowed to righties. He has always been better against righties in his career, but this has been more extreme, and much more concerning for his future as a starter instead of a ROOGY. You could argue that he has been beaten by some of the toughest lefties in AAA so far, but it’s not like he’s going to regularly face easier lefties in the majors.

Relief Coverage

Scott Rice continues to struggle with control in Las Vegas, but much of the 51s pen has been lights out so far. The pen came in to Wednesday’s game with a collective 2.86 ERA over 21.2 IP, compared to the 5.28 ERA by starters over their 29.1 IP, and those numbers only got farther apart.

Bradford

Thornton

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