Rainiers Fall Back To .500

The Rainiers lost their third straight game to Fresno on Saturday night, and the team’s record has fallen to 46-46 on the year.

It’s been an interesting journey for the club so far this season. After sputtering out of the gate in the first week of the season, Tacoma went on an extended hot streak and peaked at 13 games over .500. The club was 29-16 on the morning of May 25, sitting in first place in the Pac-North with a two-game lead over Reno.

Since that fateful day – known as Mike Freeman Day in certain circles – Tacoma has gone 17-30, and is now back to the .500 mark for the first time since the team was 4-4 on April 14th.

The good news is there are still 50 games left in the season – plenty of time for the Rainiers to turn around the recent trend, and start playing winning baseball again.

RAINIERS ROUND-UP

Yesterday: Dan Vogelbach launched a tape measure homer in the first to give Tacoma a 2-0 lead, but it was all downhill from there as Fresno went on to win, 11-2, on Saturday night. Tyler White‘s grand slam in the fourth inning broke it open for Fresno.

Today: Fresno (52-41) at Tacoma (46-46), 1:35.

Opponent Affiliation: Houston Astros.

Season Series: Fresno leads, 8-3.

Starting Pitchers: RHP Mike Hauschild (4-1, 5.36) at RHP Chase De Jong (3-4, 6.17).

Hot Rainiers: Leonys Martin has been successful in his last 21 stolen base attempts… he’s hitting .365 in July… Tyler O’Neill saw his eight-game hitting streak come to an end last night.

Look Out For: Tony Kemp has a 20-game hitting streak, and he had a ten-game before that – he’s hit safely in 30 of his last 31 games… Teoscar Hernandez has gone 6-for-11 with four extra-base hits in this series… Alejandro Garcia has a nine-game hitting streak.

Broadcast: The pregame show starts at 1:20 on South Sound Sports 850 AM. The broadcast also streams online via the TuneIn app – just click here. It’s a Sunday home game, so Bob Robertson joins me in the booth.

PCL Scoreboard: Follow all Pacific Coast League games in real-time with links to Gameday screens right here.

Links:

• The Mariners overcame some shaky defense and beat the White Sox on Saturday, 4-3. They go for a rare road sweep today. Three takeaways from the game.
• It looks like Sam Gaviglio will be returning to the Mariners starting rotation on Tuesday.
• It’s trade deadline time, so in his Sunday baseball column Ryan Divish looks at the starting pitchers who might be available before the end of the month.
• Buster Olney has a free column on ESPN today – robot umps, and the notes for the trade deadline.
• ESPN.com posted a revealing interview with Felix Hernandez discussing his personal life.

PCL Game Reports:

• El Paso stunned Reno, and the first place Aces saw their lead over Fresno shrink to three games. Ryan Schimpf homered off All-Star closer Jimmy Sherfy in the ninth to tie the game, and Franchy Cordero homered in the tenth to win it.
• Salt Lake added a shortstop prospect, but lost to Sacramento on Saturday night, 4-3.
• Las Vegas made four errors and lost an ugly one to Albuquerque, 9-5.
• Memphis won its fifth straight game, coasting to a 9-1 win over Round Rock behind Luke Weaver (8-1, 1.92). Weaver missed the All-Star Game because he was in the big leagues for a minute prior to the break – maybe we’ll see him when Memphis comes to Tacoma in a couple of weeks.
• Nashville shortstop Yairo Munoz drove in five runs during an 11-5 win at Omaha.
• New Orleans edged Oklahoma City, 4-3, and the Cakes are going for a rare four-game road sweep today.
• Iowa at Colorado Springs was rained out for the third day in a row. Rumor has it they may actually play baseball today.