Lopes extends hitting streak but Rainiers swept by River Cats

Tim Lopes capped off his searing hot homestand with a three-hit afternoon Sunday, but it wasn’t quite enough as the Rainiers fell 6-5 to Sacramento at Cheney Stadium.

Lopes singled up the middle in the bottom of the first to push his current hitting streak to 14 games. The team high for the Rainiers this year is 15, set by J.P. Crawford.

“He’s getting good pitches to hit, and he’s not missing,” Rainiers manager Daren Brown said.

Lopes added another single in the sixth, then pulled Tacoma within a run in the bottom of the eighth on a two-run home run, his 10th of the season. It’s the first time in his career that he’s reached double-digit homers in a season.

He ended the homestand with a .405 batting average and a 1.222 OPS in 11 games.

“He makes solid contact a lot,” Brown said. “I know in this homestand there were some balls that got out the ballpark, but he’s a guy that’s not trying to hit homers. He’s a guy that’s trying to make solid contact.”

Mike Wright retired the first eight batters he faced, but ended up giving up a two-run homer in the third and a solo bomb in the fourth. He was pulled for Andrew Moore with a runner on in the fourth, and back-to-back RBI doubles gave Sacramento a 5-1 lead.

Moore had two runs tagged to his line in 3.2 innings. David McKay and Parkel Markel combined for two scoreless innings to end the game.

John Andreoli led off the bottom of the first with his fifth home run of the year — and first at Cheney Stadium. It would end up being the first of five big flies of the day.

“It’s the PCL,” Brown laughed. “We see it quite often.”

Ian Miller added a solo shot of his own — his eight of the season — in the bottom of the fifth.

Still, the power display was not enough to prevent the Rivercats from winning all three games in the series.

Following the long-anticipated off-day, the Rainiers will fly to Reno Tuesday morning, where they’ll take on the Aces that evening. Tacoma will play three in Reno, then three in Sacramento, and come back to Cheney Stadium on July 30 against Omaha.

This story was originally published July 21, 2019 at 5:15 PM with the headline "Lopes extends hitting streak but Rainiers swept by River Cats."