Ortiz helps Fist annihilate Mighty Men

Las Vegas took Carolina into extra innings and ended up pulling off another 1-run victory. The Mudcats rallied in the eighth to tie the game up at six. Randy Winn hit a two-run homer to even the score. Then in the top of the 13th, Joe Mauer his a solo home run to give the Rats the lead back. Francisco Rodriguez (last year's Eckersley Award winner) saved his first game of the season by striking out the side in the bottom half of the inning. The Rats are now an unbelievable 11-1 in one-run games.

Hoboken's Jeremy Guthrie pitched a complete game 4-hitter in the Cutters' 3-1 win over Hillsborough. His counterpart, Felix Hernandez fell to 0-6 on the season, despite a solid outing.

Dan Uggla's three-run homer and Aaron Harang's ace pitching suffocated the Sugar Bears and the Bombers went on to a 4-1 victory. Chien-Ming Wang has now lost three straight decisions and has only received 7 runs in support of his last three starts (5 of which came in one game).

Vancouver just finished a three-game sweep of Marietta that saw them score 33 runs to the Mighty Men's 10. Vancouver's David Ortiz is responsible for almost half of those runs, driving in 13 runs in the past two games (19 RBIs in total just against Marietta this year). Ortiz has had a great start to his season and now has a very comfortable lead in RBIs with 63 (Newark's Nick Swisher is second with 48). Ortiz also currently leads the league in batting average (.353), on base percentage (.481), slugging (.776), and doubles (21) and is tied for the league lead in home runs (17). Vancouver simply has the Mighty Men's number this year, going 7-0 so far and scoring a ridiculous 84 runs in those seven games (an average of 12 a game!).

Sugar Bears mount comeback for 11th straight

The Sugar Bears squeaked out a 10-9 victory over Carolina yesterday for their 11th win in a row. Marlon Anderson once again led the way with a 4-4 line and Carlos Guillen hit two solo home runs. The Mudcats actually led the game 9-3 entering the eighth inning, but then all hell broke loose. Chipper Jones led off the inning with a solo homer, then Super Marlon hit a double, followed by a single and a walk. Scott Linebrink was called in to stop the rally, but instead walked in the fifth run for the Sugar Bears. He struck out the next batter, but gave up a two run single to Jim Edmonds. The closer was now needed. Brian Fuentes came in with the score 9-7 with runners on first and second, facing the red-hot Manny Ramirez (this week's Hitter of the Week). Manny took Fuentes deep to left center and gave the Sugar Bears the 10-9 lead and the win.

Hoboken was crushed by New Jersey 14-3 yesterday. Yuniesky Betancourt and Adam Kennedy, those two powerhouse offensive stars, each had four hits, including 4 RBIs from Betancourt. Ichiro Suzuki also had four hits. The only home run came from Hoboken's Chris Duncan. The Cutters did not help themselves out in the game at all. Hoboken committed five errors, including two by Duncan (who must have tried to make it up with the homer), though they only resulted in two unearned runs.

Las Vegas' quest to turnover their entire bullpen is now almost complete. After Vegas cut Taylor Tankersley yesterday, only one member of the opening day bullpen remains: closer Chris Ray. Tankersley ran his ERA up to 9.10 and deserved the exile, but Will Ohman, Juan Cruz, and Ricky Nolasco were wondering what they did to deserve their fates. Meanwhile, the newest addition to the Vegas pen, Ryan Franklin, earned his first save of the season yesterday against Marietta.

Josh Barfield was happy to return to the Straphangers clubhouse yesterday. The second baseman was activated from the DL yesterday after the club insisted that he get some additional rehabilitation time in AAA Brooklyn. "We wanted him to be a 110% for the Honolulu series" said manager Bucky Dent.