Stampeded JetHawks Grounded by Pitching

They say good pitching stops good hitting. Well, the JetHawks proved it again on Tuesday night.

The JetHawk hitting machine, which tore through the first three weeks of the season, was held to just seven hits in a 6-2 loss to the San Bernardino Stampede before 3,178 at the Hangar. The JetHawks have been held to seven hits in each of their past three games, two of them losses.

The JetHawks, who had been averaging nearly 11 hits and seven runs per game, had a slight rally with two hits in the ninth, but could not score.

“It’s hard to keep up a pace of 10 or 15 hits a game,” second baseman Jason Cook said. “You can’t expect to do that all year, whether it was just cooling off or good pitching, I don’t know.”

The hot pitcher in this case was San Bernardino right-hander Ken Sikes, a 23-year-old in his fourth season of pro baseball. He went into the game having walked 17 batters in 25 1/3 innings. But he avoided any serious jams against the JetHawks, allowing only three hits in seven innings.

He retired the first eight batters before Luis Molina reached on an error in the third. Sikes then collected himself and set down the next four.

The JetHawks, who went into the game leading the California League with a .297 average, tried to mount rallies in the fifth and sixth, getting two runners on in each inning.

Jesus Marquez was hitless in four at-bats, ending his 16-game hitting streak.

After Sikes was pulled, the JetHawks finally got on the scoreboard. Shawn Buhner’s two-out single off reliever Jake Kenady in the eighth drove in a pair of runs to make the score 6-2.

JetHawk starter Ivan Montane actually seemed to be pitching almost as well as Sikes, but Montane wasn’t as lucky. While all the JetHawk grounders seemed to find gloves, all of the Stampede’s seemed to find the outfield.

A series of dribblers, bloopers and three errors created five Stampede runs in the six innings Montane pitched.

Montane struck out four and walked three.

The Stampede scored three runs in the second on a rally prolonged when shortstop Molina bobbled a potential double-play grounder that could have ended the inning.

In the fourth, Scott Richardson’s one-out grounder deflected off the glove of diving third baseman Mike Lanza for a single. Matt McCarty then walked, and both runners moved into scoring position on a groundout.

Cliff Anderson hit another grounder that skipped off the glove of a diving infielder, this time second baseman Jason Cook. The ball rolled into right field and both runners scored, giving the Stampede a 5-0 lead.

San Bernardino 6, JetHawks 2

San Bernardino 030 200 100 -- 6 9 1

JetHawks 000 000 020 -- 2 7 4

Sikes, Kenady (8), Paluk (8), Linares (9) and Cooney; Montane, Gould (7), Pearce (9) and Sealy.

W--Sikes (3-0).L--Montane (2-1).

Records: San Bernardino 16-9; JetHawks 17-9.