Modesto runs into another hot Visalia pitcher as Nuts drop 2nd straight to Rawhide

For the second consecutive night, the Modesto Nuts were thoroughly handled by the Visalia Rawhide, falling 9-2 Friday night at John Thurman Field and closing the month of July with a modest two-game slide.

Modesto, which had won 19 of its previous 27 games in July, had more errors (3) than hits (2) until the seventh inning when it pushed across a run for the first time since Raimel Tapia’s solo homer in Thursday’s 7-1 loss, some 12 innings earlier.

Less than a week ago, the Nuts completed a four-game sweep of the Rawhide in Visalia, and then used the momentum from that series to sweep the Stockton Ports and complete a perfect seven-game road trip.

Coming into this series with Visalia, which kicked off a seven-game homestand and began a stretch of 20 home dates over the next 31 games, the Nuts had won 10 of their last 12 against the California League’s first-half North Division champs.

But on Thursday they ran into Ryan Doran (6-1), who hasn’t lost since May 16. He went eight innings, giving up just three hits and two walks while fanning four.

Friday, it was Brandon Sinnery’s turn. The lanky right-hander out of the University of Michigan allowed just four hits, no walks and one earned run in seven innings.

“He’s one of our better pitchers, command-wise,” said Visalia manager J.R. House, a former big league catcher who played five seasons in the majors with the Pirates, Astros and Orioles. “He worked his fastball to both sides of the plate and throws a split-change mix; he holds it like a splitter, but it works like a change-up.”

In the seventh, Sinnery got clean-up hitter Ryan McMahon to line out to left and then induced a groundout by right fielder Drew Weeks. Rosell Herrera followed with his second hit of the game, a triple to center, and Correlle Prime drove him in with a bad-hop single to right. After retiring Wilfredo Rodriguez to end the inning, that was all for Sinnery.

The Nuts’ other run of the night came in the ninth in almost identical fashion. Reliever J.R. Bradley fanned McMahon and got Weeks to fly out to right, but Herrera doubled to left and Prime plated him with a double to right. Herrera and Prime, both 3-for-4, collected six of Modesto’s seven hits in the game. Wilson Soriano (1-for-1), who pinch-hit for Tapia in the eighth, was the only other Modesto player to get a hit.

The Rawhide got off to a quick start against Zach Jemiola (4-3).

After scoring in the first on an RBI single by Gerson Montilla, Visalia made it 2-0 in the second when Jose Queliz jumped all over a 1-0 fastball and hit the scoreboard in left, just beyond the 393-foot sign.

In the sixth, with runners on second and third, Kevin Cron nailed a 2-2 change-up that curled around the foul pole in left for a three-run bomb and a 5-0 Visalia lead.

The Rawhide pushed across a fourth run in the sixth when Kevin Medrano singled, stole second, moved to third on a wild pitch by reliever Matt Pierpont, and then scored on another wild pitch.

Visalia padded an already cozy lead in the seventh on a two-run, opposite field blast to left by first baseman Daniel Palka, making it 8-0.

Modesto’s lead in the second-half North Division standings shrinks to one game over San Jose and Visalia, while its wild-card lead over Stockton is reduced to three games.

Game 3 of this four-game series is tonight at 7:05 p.m. when Modesto’s Conner Wade (6-6, 4.17) will take on the Rawhide’s Blake Perry (7-3, 4.39).

Nuts Notes – Outfielder Weeks joined the Nuts while they were on their recent seven-game road trip, making his Cal League debut July 23 in Visalia. In eight games with the Nuts, Weeks is hitting .200. The 22-year-old native of Orange Park, Fla., was hitting .290 with six home runs, 55 RBIs and an OPS of .803 in 88 games with Low-A Asheville, N.C., of the South Atlantic League. ... Jordan Patterson, who was promoted to Double-A New Britain, Conn., of the Eastern League on July 13, is hitting . 375 in 14 games with the Rock Cats. After bottoming out at .133 in his sixth game with New Britain, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound Alabama native is hitting .483 (14-for-29) in his last eight games. … The Nuts’ recent eight-game winning streak was the club’s longest since a nine-game stretch in August 2013. Modesto’s perfect 7-0 road trip was the team’s first since becoming a Colorado affiliate in 2005.

This story was originally published August 1, 2015 at 12:19 AM with the headline "Modesto runs into another hot Visalia pitcher as Nuts drop 2nd straight to Rawhide."