The hits keep on coming

Wednesday's game is what happens when you put a hitting coach in charge.

With Modesto Nuts manager Jerry Weinstein sitting out a game for making contact with an umpire last weekend, Duane Espy took the helm for a night.

He's the team's hitting coach. What did you expect, a pitchers' duel?

So for the second consecutive game, the Stockton Ports put a beating on Nuts' pitching, this time victimizing starter Aneury Rodriguez to defeat Modesto 10-8 at John Thurman Field.

"I don't how we can swing the bat better than that and we've been doing it for a while," said Espy, who was the California League manager of the year with San Jose in 1989, and also managed the Ports in 1981 and '82. "We left some on the table, but we also made some hard outs with runners on base."

Among the 24 hits allowed by both teams were inside-the-park home runs by Modesto's Jay Cox and Stockton's Jermaine Mitchell -- the first time Thurman Field has seen two inside-the-park homers since its 1997 refurbishment.

In addition, right fielder Kane Simmons homered in his first Nuts' at-bat, making him the first Modesto player to debut with a long ball since Ryan Ludwick homered in his first two at-bats on July 20, 1999.

Cox's sprint around the bases tied the game 2-2 in the second inning. Rodriguez gave up three runs to the Ports in the third, but Modesto promptly staked the righty to an 8-5 lead with a wild six-run bottom of the third.

Simmons drove in the first run when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, and Cox unloaded them when his line drive to right scooted to the wall for a triple. Cox scored on Matt Repec's single for the three-run lead.

Rodriguez gave the lead right back in the fourth, giving up Mitchell's home run to open the inning. He was pulled when the Ports loaded the bases on a bunt single and two walks, and all three runs scored with reliever Andy Graham on the mound as the Ports pulled ahead 9-6.

When he's on his game, Rodriguez is as good as any pitcher in the California League. He has two of the league's five complete-game shutouts this season, with the last coming on June 2 against High Desert.

In his 10 outings since then, Rodriguez has only three quality starts, with this most recent outing his most difficult in that stretch. He needed 101 pitches to get 10 outs, giving up nine runs (seven earned) on nine hits. He got eight of his outs via the strikeout, which serves to underscore the all-or nothing aspect of his outing.

Graham gave up a homer to Matt Spencer in the sixth for the game's final run, as the relievers on both teams stifled the scoring following the wild opening four innings. Graham went 2º innings, Jonathan George was sharp in two innings and Will Harris worked a perfect ninth.

But Modesto failed to rally against the Ports' bullpen, collecting only four more hits, all singles, following Repec's RBI single in the third.

"When you throw a six-run inning on the board, it's hard to ask for more than that from your hitters," Espy said. "We made some mistakes in other aspects of the game and it all adds up to a loss."

Bee staff writer Brian VanderBeek can be reached at bvanderbeek@modbee.com or 578-2300.