Excuse the mixed sports metaphor, but Joe Montana once was asked why he didn't lead his teams to as many fourth-quarter comebacks as Denver's John Elway.
"Easy," Montana said. "We were never behind."
The Modesto Nuts have been chock-full of late-inning rallies this season. Some have gone into producing many of their 11 walk-off wins. Others, like the one in Wednesday's 8-6, 11-inning loss to Lake Elsinore, came up big before falling short.
Modesto appeared all but ready to cave until the eighth inning, when the first six batters hit safely to erase all of a 6-1 Storm lead.
But the magic wore off in the 11th inning, when the Storm got a two-run double from Jonathan Galvez to grab the series-clinching victory.
The loss kept the Nuts 1½ games ahead of San Jose in the race for the California League's North Division title with 11 games remaining. With Bakersfield losing, Modesto maintained its lead in the wild-card race at 5½ games, with a magic number of seven against the Blaze.
Kurt Yacko (1-6), the sixth of Modesto's seven pitchers, retired the first seven hitters he faced before running into trouble with one out in the 11th. He allowed a single to Oscar Garcia and walked Jeudy Valdez before Galvez drove a high fastball off the wall in left-center.
The outcome was far less than ideal for the Nuts, but their late-inning rally was something special, and also something the home fans have come to expect from this team.
Trailing 6-1 and looking a tad lethargic, the Nuts found life in the eighth.
Josh Rutledge led off with a triple and Nolan Arenado singled, driving in his 112th run of the season to make it 6-2. Angelys Nina doubled and Kiel Roling singled, driving in Arenado.
The Storm exchanged reliever Dustin Pease for Jason Ray at that point, but David Christensen greeted Ray with a booming two-run triple off the wall in center, and Jose Gonzalez followed with a game-tying RBI single right up the middle.
Christensen's at-bat not only was the big hit of the inning, but had some added intrigue. He took a hard swing at Ray's first pitch, then backed out of the batter's box reaching for the back of neck, as if he had strained a muscle.
After trainer Chris Dovey came out and checked Christensen, he took another hard swing and miss at a second high fastball. He didn't miss the third one.
Nuts' starter Dan Perkins struggled from the beginning, allowing a run on two hits and two walks in the first, and leaving after 2 1/3 innings, allowing four runs on five hits. Reliever Sheng-An Kuo gave up three hits and two runs in getting four outs, leaving on the short end of a 6-1 score.
And then order was restored.
Coty Woods retired all seven batters he faced, Chad Rose worked a scoreless seventh and Mike Marbry hoisted a zero in the eighth.
Since Modesto's offense wasn't putting anything together through that point, the relievers could have been excused for thinking they were just getting in some work ahead of an off-day.
But in a season of comebacks, the hope of one more had to be somewhere in their minds.
• NUTS NOTES — With the four-game series against Visalia Sept. 2-5 still remaining on the Nuts' regular season schedule, the 2011 attendance of 164,872 already ranks third in the 65 years of minor league baseball in Modesto. If the Nuts don't eclipse last year's all-time mark of 180,344 it will break a four-year run of attendance records, but at the very least 2011 will go down as the No. 2 season at the turnstile, surpassing 2009's 167,722.
Next: Friday at Visalia, 7 p.m.
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