STOCKTON — The Stockton Ports had a chance to escape their series with the Visalia Rawhide with a split on Sunday, but they could not manage a runner past second until the ninth inning and by that time it was too little too late as the Rawhide won the California League contest 9-2 in front of 2,002 fans at Banner Island Ballpark.
Dairon Blanco (2 for 2, run) reached base four times for the Ports (10-8) and led off the ninth with his second walk. Jonah Heim advanced Blanco on a Texas-League single to center and Blanco took third on Eric Marinez’s fielder’s choice. Edwin Diaz hit a sacrifice fly to center to score Blanco to make the score 9-1.
Marinez took second on an unchallenged steal, third on an Jason Goldstein’s infield single and scored on an infield single by Brallan Perez for the last run of the game.
“He manages his at-bats,” Stockton manager Rick Magnante said of Blanco. “He doesn’t really swing out of the zone too much and he is willing to take a walk. As far as giving us an opportunity to get people on base, he is probably doing as good as job as anyone.
“Overall we were lethargic at the plate and we were not putting runners on base or when we got them on we were not moving them over. We are not making good decisions on the bases either. He had a missed hit and run and we got picked off at first when we were down 4-0.
The Rawhide (11-7) took the series 3-1.
“I have to tip my hat to the Visalia team,” Magnante said. “They are a very good team. They pitched well out of the rotation and they pitched well out of the bullpen. They swung the bats and they ran the bases – they stole six bags on us Saturday. We couldn’t control them on the base paths.”
Visalia 7, Stockton 3
STOCKTON – The Rawhide had a four-run third inning Saturday night and the Ports could not make up the difference in front of 5,047 fans.
“We gave up that bases-loaded double in the third,” Magnante said. “They had driven in a run before that so we were down 5-1.
“We got 11 hits but we were not able to get a lot of runs. We were not able to capitalize or do much with runners in scoring position. We kicked the ball around a little bit and I don’t know if it actually hurt us in terms of runs being scored but it certainly extended innings and pitchers’ counts so they have to stay out there longer.”
Heim had the big bat for the Ports, hitting a solo home run in second inning and a double in the fourth, going 3 for 4.
“I was just seeing the ball well,” Heim said. “I was trying to put barrel on the ball and see what happened.”
