Final Week Begins with Win Over Rockies
By Tyler Petersen
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – The last seven games of the season began tonight with a tightly-contested 8-7 win over the Grand Junction Rockies.
The Vibes were able to brave four Rockies home runs but did enough on offense to keep their lead. The pitching combination of Dusty Baird, Nathan Draves, Seth Davis, and Miguel Pozo struck out 13.
Rocky Mountain took an early lead with a run in each of the first innings. A Ulysses Cantu RBI single, a wild pitch scoring Andrew Hanson, and an Ethan Lopez RBI accounted for the three runs.
In the fourth with the score 3-2, the Vibes got three more, this time all in one inning. Hanson reached second on an error, stole third and came home on a bad throw by the catcher. Doubles by Ulises Nunez and Cantu brought in the other two runs to make it a 6-3 game.
In the sixth, Gio Diaz smashed a ball out of the ballpark for his second home run of the year.
Grand Junction hit home runs of their own in each of the sixth and the seventh to make the game a one-run contest.
In the eighth, bases were loaded for Cesar Lopez. He sent a ball down the left field line and it was initially ruled to be a grand slam. But the three umpires gathered for a meeting and overturned their initial call. What would have brought in four runs was instead only a strike. Lopez was able to hit a sacrifice fly to centerfield to make it 8-6.
It turned out to be a crucial sacrifice fly as in the bottom of the inning the Rockies hit another home run to close the gap to one again.
But as he's done so often this season, closer Miguel Pozo had a 1-2-3 ninth inning, earning him his 10th save of the season.
In each of their three trips to Grand Junction this year, the Vibes have taken the series opener.
Tomorrow features a double-header, making up one of the games which was postponed in the last trip to Suplizio Field.
