JetHawks Put Giant Pitcher on His Wallet

Just wait until the Lancaster JetHawks finally play a game in a hitters’ park.

Like their own.

The JetHawks’ season-opening 12-game trip has so far taken them through Bakersfield, Visalia and San Jose--three parks in which the ball doesn’t carry well.

Still, they had a league-leading .295 batting average before Thursday night’s game against the San Jose Giants, when they continued to pound the ball, leading, 16-9, on 14 hits through the eighth inning of a marathon game before 3,542 at Municipal Stadium.

The hits came from everywhere. Mike Lanza, the No. 9 hitter, had four of them--including a home run and four runs batted in--in his first four at-bats. Lanza, a utilityman, was playing in place of Luis Molina, who was resting his sore back.

The hit parade is likely to continue when the JetHawks get to the Southern Division parks--including The Hangar in Lancaster--which are even more hitter-friendly because of the warmer weather, wind and cozy dimensions.

Which will probably make for some long games with the JetHawk hitters, who have shown so far they can hit just about anyone.

In the past three days, the JetHawks have scored 16 runs against more than $2 million worth of pitchers.

On Tuesday, the JetHawks scored eight runs off the Visalia Oaks’ Larry Rodriguez, a Cuban signed by the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks for $1.25 million.

Thursday night they scored eight more against Joe Fontenot, who the San Francisco Giants’ signed for $900,000 after they drafted him in the first round last June.

The JetHawks went to work on the 19-year-old Fontenot early and often, touching him up for three runs in the first inning, three in the second and two more before he was pulled two out into the fourth.

Marcus Sturdivant led off the game with a single, giving him a hit in all seven games in which he’s played.

With two on and one out, Carlos Villalobos hit a two-run triple and scored on Jesus Marquez’s double.

In the second, after the Giants scored two in the bottom of the first, the JetHawks added runs on Shane Monahan’s sacrifice fly, a single by Jose Cruz and a sacrifice fly by James Clifford.

Lanza homered leading off the fourth. Lancaster added a run when Sturdivant singled, reached third on two wild pitches and scored on Cruz’s grounder.

In the fifth, the JetHawks piled on five more runs and led, 13-3.

JetHawk starter Ken Cloude, bound by an early season 80-pitch limit, was pulled after 79 pitches in four innings--one shy of the number required for a victory.

Cloude gave up five hits and two earned runs. He struck out six and did not walk a batter.

Chris Beck relieved Cloude and stood to pick up his second victory.