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Show Thursday, July 17, 2008 Orem's strong week ends with blowout loss to Billings 0 R E M TIMES Jared Uoyd andjleil K. Warner NOPTH COUNTY Contestants in Monday night's Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium in New York get the chance to score as many runs as they can before totaling 10 outs. The Billings Mustang offense of-fense decided to see how they could do with similar rules but used more of a "small ball" approach ap-proach in Monday night's contest con-test at Brent Brown Ballpark in Orem against the home-standing home-standing Owlz. The totals: 16 hits, 16 runs. Before Orem could record the 10th defensive out in fourth inning, the Mustangs had tallied four runs in the first, three in the second, seven in the third and two more in the fourth for an impressive 16-run performance. It would be all the visitors would need as they cruised the rest of the way and picked up the 16-6 win. I Big inning helps Orem whip Billings: At Orem, it may not have mattered who was on the mound Sunday afternoon against the Orem Owlz. Towering home runs, doubles dou-bles in the gaps and down the line. Twoout singles. It rained runs. There was a nine-run first inning where the Owlz sent 14 men to the plate. There was a total of 19 hits and 17 runs and aU of this in just eight innings of work. It would have taken the combined pitching staff of the Futures game to cool off this team. You could see Orem's team batting average keep rising like the price of filling up an SUV. When it was over, Orem pounded out a 17-5 win over Billings to improve on its Pioneer Pio-neer League best 19-7 record. "Obviously Billings and Great Falls have good records re-cords in that division (Pioneer League North) so you can just about bet tomorrow's game will be 3-2 or 4-2. you can just about bet on h," said Orem manager Tom Kotchman. "We got good starting pitching with (Jose) Perez and obviously we got a 9-spot in the first inning. We hit some balls hard and we hit a lot of balls that blooped in and fell in, but when you make contact funny things happen." Billings starter Clayton AA. -f t I -.. 1x - Yrt Queen Mattress Set $599 reg. $799 King Mattress Set $799 reg. $999 Upgrade to Memory Foam for $50 i i : Shunick had Donato Gio-vanatto Gio-vanatto 0-2 with two outs, but couldn't close him out or his teammates. Orem scored five more runs and by the end of the first inning, the Owlz led 94). "It's one of the longer first innings I've been a part of, but it's always good to gets some runs in the first inning and get ahead early. It makes things a lot easier on the pitcher to go out there and throw a lot of strikes," said Orem first baseman Gabe Jacobo, who had two hits in the first inning alone. "In this type of game, you're going to get a lot of at-bats. at-bats. You've just got to stay focused and take every at -bat seriously like you're first at-bat. at-bat. There's not let up really. You just have to keep taking quality at -bats." Orem's big inning started off oddly enough with a strikeout. But Darwin Perez then started the one-out nightmare with a single to center. Roberto Ro-berto Lopez was hit by a pitch and Jacobo singled in a run. Luis Jimenez followed with a three-run homer to put the Owlz up 4-0. Shunick got Angel Castillo to fly out for the second hit of the inning, but the inning was not over. Oh no. It was far from over. After Shunick had Giovanat-to Giovanat-to down 0-2, he hit him with a pitch. Dwayne Bailey singled and Ivan Villaescusa doubled in two runs. How tough was it for Shunick to close out the inning? in-ning? He struck out Rian Kiniry, but even that didn't work. The pitch was in the dirt and Kiniry reached first. Perez and Lopez followed with back-to-back singles, which chased Shunick from the game. Not even a pitching change could slow down the Owlz' of-fease. of-fease. Jacobo singled in a run to give Orem a 9-0 lead. Finally, Jimenez after launching a home run foul struck out to end the inning. Lopez, who had his 23-game hitting streak snapped on Saturday night, started off a new streak in a big way. He went 4-for-5 and drove in three runs. Jacobo went 3-for-5 and both Perez and Villaescusa had three hits for the Owlz. I Mustangs shut down Orem's offense: At Orem, how good was Billings starter Jamie 77 -.4 5 T V: - cull flfi II tt M0 00800 V) Orem third baseman Luis Jimenez inning on Friday. Arneson? Arneson went six innings, allowed three hits and one unearned un-earned run. One unearned run in six innings in-nings against the Orem Owlz. the Pioneer League's best -hitting team who averages seven runs per game? Who are you, Ben Sheets? But that wasn't all. Arneson did something no pitcher in the Pioneer League has been able to this year. He kept Orem Owlz outfield Roberto Lopez from getting a hit. Arneson turned in his best outing of the year on Saturday night as he pitched Billings past Orem 7-3 to take the first game of a three-game series in Orem. "I thought their starter did a great job. You've got to give their pitching staff a lot of credit. They held us in check," said Orem hitting coach Brent Del Chiaro. "Our discipline at the plate was a little bit off tonight. We swung at some pitches that were out of the zone that took ourselves out of some counts that could have put us in some hitters counts. I don't think we ever really had a threat." 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Angels of Anaheim organization orga-nization at a scouting functioa Lopez went 0-for-2 and had his 23-game hitting streak snapped. Lopez came into the game hitting .436, but he grounded out, struck out. walked and was hit by a pitch. The hitting streak is over, but he has still reached base in all 24 games he's played in. an amazing feat. Orem's offense struggled to get anything going all night. I Offense comes through in the ninth as Owlz edge Voyagers: At Orem, it's the most basic description de-scription of the game of baseball base-ball Pitcher vs. batter. It comes down to whether the guy on the mound can keep the guy at the plate from making mak-ing something happen, particularly particu-larly in the ninth inning with the game on the line. In Friday's thrilling Pioneer League contest at Brent Brown Ballpark between the Orem Owlz and the visiting Great Falls Voyagers, the batters came through for both sides in the final frame, but that was enough for Orem to escape with the 11-10 win. The Owlz entered the final soldiersummit.com MOUNTAIN ESTATES R00IT1II ESTATES martsted ftroogft David Cunningham Bankers Rearty inning with a 10-6 lead and appeared ready to close out the contest, but reliever Reyes Dorado couldn't get his pitches working. He allowed two singles and hit a batter, loading the bases with no outs. Voyager designated hitter Tyler Kuhn came through for the visitors, smashing a bases-clearing bases-clearing triple to the wall in right -center field He then came home when four Orem fielders couldn't corral a high pop fly by third baseman Kyle SheKon to shallow shal-low center field, tying the game. "It got crazy," said Orem manager Tom Kotchman. "We hit the No. 9 batter and put him on base, loaded the bases and they cleared them. But that's the kind of club they are. You can't give them that." The Owlz brought in reliever Kevin Nabors to put out the fire, but he allowed a pair of hits to put the go-ahead run in scoring position with just one out. With the pitchers having their issues, the Orem defense came through with a big play as shortstop Darwin Perez snatched up a grounder up the middle, slid across second and fired to first for the inning-ending inning-ending double play. In the bottom of the ninth, it was Great Falls that would have its turn with problems on the mound. Reliever Ronald Morales walked three straight batters to load the bases with no outs. All the Owlz wanted was one good swing of the bat to WHO lilt OCtftD ODcIfiHEKi lrai nmi in - til .j fsst Insurance accepted. 7 - 5) N ' T - - 1 . M r VV. ir i , . Smile Beautiful ...this spring with a Whiter t j I Brighter Smile in about an J f hour with ZOOM Whitening A ' , 4 ' for $295ooVi f4K ' ' & Call for an Appointment 756-8686 put the game away and second baseman Ivan Contreras got the job done, slicing a sharp grounder past the pitcher. With the infield playing in to prevent the run. Voyager shortstop Lee Fishcher couldn't make the play and the winning run crossed the plate. "He just made contact with the bafl," Kotchman said "When you do that, funny things happea" The big ninth capped a game of runs and responses. Both teams put up three runs in the second, followed by Great Falls going up one in the third. Orem came back in the bottom bot-tom of the third on a three-run shot to deep left-center by right fielder Angel Castillo. Great Falls refused to go down without a fight, battling back to tie things up in the fifth on a two-run double by second, baseman Jesus Avila. The home team went back in front in the seventh as Owlz first baseman Gabe Jacobo hit a single, then came home on a triple by third baseman Luis Jimenez to make it a 7-6 game. In the bottom of the eighth, Orem added three insurance insur-ance runs before allowing the Voyagers to come back in the ninth. I Owlz dominate in shutout of Great Falls: At Orem, every team hopes to have that one guy step into the spotlight and make the big play. Last Thursday night at Brent Brown Ballpark, the spotlight got awfully crowded Just about every one of the Orem Owlz earned that attention atten-tion as the home team hammered ham-mered visiting Great Falls, 13-0, 13-0, handing the Voyagers their worst loss of the season. "When you win, you have to have a lot of people contribute," contrib-ute," said Orem manager Tom Kotchman. "But we're playing play-ing a very good ball club and they'll be ready tomorrow." It began with the Owlz ace pitcher Jayson Miller, a lefty who hadn't allowed a run in his last 16 innings. Make that 23, as he kept Great Falls from scoring during his seven innings in-nings of work while allowing five hits with five strikeouts and no walks. Relievers Jeremy Thorne and Lou Green also did their job, giving up one hit in two innings in-nings of relief. But after scoring just five runs in the first two games of the four -game set with the leaders of the Pioneer League North division, the bats got going go-ing early and oftea Leading the way was shortstop short-stop Darwin Perez, who just needed a triple to hit for the cycle. i u a-" Dr. Bruce B.RicrtAtDSi . 33 fc-MAIN " Fork, Utah 84003 i 1 " i imm |