Six Osprey pitchers combined to surrender 19 hits and there home runs as the visiting Orem Owlz stung the O's to the tune of 22-5 in Pioneer League baseball action.
Missoula's second straight loss came on the heels of a 7-0 blanking at the hands of the Ogden Raptors on Saturday and dropped the club's second-half mark to 9-11. The Osprey dropped five games back of the first-place Great Falls White Sox in the race for the Northern Division's second playoff berth.
Despite the O's second consecutive disheartening loss, Missoula right fielder Jimmy Principe said the team still feels like it's in contention to reach the postseason and defend the team's league championship.
“We feel like we can get hot at any time,” said Principe, who paced the Osprey bats, going 2-for-4 with a solo homer in the fourth inning. “We feel like we could wake up tomorrow and win a bunch of games in a row and repeat what the guys did last year. That would be a beautiful thing.”
For the Osprey to have any chance at competing for a trophy, they must come up with higher-caliber pitching than their hurlers showed on Sunday.
Josh Blake got his second start of the season and had little luck in 3 1-3 innings of work. He allowed eight runs - all earned on seven hits and two walks. He struck out three, but fell to 1-1. After the Owlz scored a single run in the first and three more in the second on the Gonzalez home run, Orem chased Blake in the third after he gave up De Los Santos' long ball, a single, a walk and a double.
But reliever Santo Baez was even worse. Entering with the bases loaded, he walked three straight hitters before Osprey manager Damon Mashore lifted him in favor of part-time hurler and innings eater Houston Summers. He served up Moore's triple before ending the Owlz' eight-run fourth by enticing a De Los Santos sacrifice fly and Chris Garcia to fly out to left. Summers also threw the fifth, Orem's lone scoreless inning.
Giornale Sena and the usually reliable Luke Prihoda combined to go the next 2 1-3 innings, allowing nine runs on eight hits with four walks and four strike outs before Evan Scribner got the final two outs, surrendering only a Derrick Thomas hit.
At the plate, Ariel Urena had a two-run single for the O's and Anthony Smith went 2-for-5 with a pair of singles.
As far as Principe is concerned, playing through a difficult loss is all part of the game.
“That's baseball for you right there,” he said. “I guess you could say the guys are a little down right now. But I'm sure tomorrow we'll come out fired up. Every day we try to come out with our heads up, fired up and ready to play. Hopefully tomorrow we can do just that and get a victory so we can remain in the playoff hunt.
The O's and Owlz will play the second of their four-game set in Missoula at 7:05 p.m. Monday.
Notes from the nest: The 1,662 in attendance left the Osprey 2,014 from breaking the club's single-season record of 70,062. During the game that mark is surpassed, the O's will send a fan at the game to an Arizona Diamondbacks game, complete with round-trip airfare and $500 spending money during the 2008 season... Smith who boosted his average to .305 with his two singles, remained the only Osprey hitting above .300.
OREM MISSOULA
ab r h bi ab r h bi
Gonzalez 2b 4 5 3 3 Rumler 2b 4 0 1 0
Romine ss 5 4 3 0 Clifford cf 1 0 0 1
Estrella 3b 5 3 1 1 Urena cf 2 0 1 2
Gronkowski dh 3 2 2 3 Harbin ss 2 0 0 0
Thomas dh 2 0 2 2 Navarro ss 3 0 0 0
Perez rf 3 2 0 3 Smith lf 5 1 2 0
Moore lf 5 1 1 4 Principe rf 4 1 2 1
Miller lf 2 0 1 0 Coughlin 1b 3 0 1 1
DeLosSantos c 5 1 2 4 Musselman c 4 1 1 0
Garcia 1b 5 1 1 0 Estevez 3b 3 1 0 0
Giovanatto cf 6 3 3 1 Worthington dh 3 1 1 0
Totals 45 22 19 21 Totals 34 5 9 5
Orem 130 801 333 - 22
Missoula 011 102 000 - 5
E - Davitt, Gonzalez-Lopez, Miller, Rumler. DP - Orem 1. LOB - Orem 11, Missoula 8. 2B - Garcia, Estrella, Romine, Smith. 3B - Moore, Worthington. HR - Gonzalez-Lopez (3), DeLosSantos (6), Giovanatto (6), Principe (4). SF - DeLosSantos, Coughlin, Clifford. CS - Principe.
Orem
IP H R ER BB SO
Davitt 4.0 5 3 3 2 1
Holland W, 4-1 2.0 3 2 2 2 5
Hurst 2.0 0 0 0 0 2
Chambers 1.0 1 0 0 0 1
Missoula
Blake L, 1-1 3.1 7 8 8 2 3
Baez 0.0 0 3 3 3 0
Summers 2.2 3 2 1 3 1
Sena 0.0 0 3 3 4 0
Prihoda 2.1 8 6 6 0 4
Scribner 0.2 1 0 0 0 0
WP - Prihoda. HBP - Perez (by Blake), Perez (by Sena). Umpires - Koyu Inoue, Brandon Misun. T - 3:10. A - 1,662
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