[ArquimedezPozo]

***NOTE: For September, in order to try to cover all 48 teams and give a clearer idea of the pennant races, I'm going to do multiple Games of the Week.

Solons Stomp Stars as Season’s Final Month Begins

There was not a lot of drama in this game, as the Solons jumped out to a 5-0 lead against Detroit ace Zack Root and never looked back. Angel Delgado continued his outstanding season with a four-hit complete game shutout to push the Stars even further behind Baltimore in the Conference.

The Solons may be as good as gone in a D2 West dominated by Vancouver, but they can still have an effect on the outcome, and they reminded Detroit of that fact quickly.

Zack Root struggled from the very start, clearly missing spots. He gave up a single to Randy Foti on his fourth pitch, hanging a curve that Foti probably didn’t hit as well as he could have. He got Colby Gall to chase ball three for a strikeout, but then walked Danny Dautel and Alejandro Flores to load the bases. Jonathan Lomison then connected, hard, on a fastball low over the plate, turning on it and sending it just over Ali Brown’s reach. It touched down along the LF line and rolled to the wall, and kicked around as all three batters came in to score. A Joe Mischel single put Lomison on third, and a walk loaded them again, but Root seemed to rally, dropping Nate Graham on three straight. Edwin Martinez, Sacramento’s #9 guy, came to the plate then, but just as it looked like Root might escape the 1B drilled a shot between the first and second basemen into right. Two came in, to make it 5-0 Solons before the Stars even had a chance to bat. Root struck out the side in the end, getting Foti, but that accomplishment wasn’t much comfort as the star slammed his glove in frustration upon returning to the bench.

Delgado allowed a leadoff single in the first as well, but the Stars offensive output ended there, as a fly out and two strikeouts of Victor Ortiz and Ali Brown brought Root back out. Gall’s leadoff triple greeted him, but Root responded with a pop-up to third that kept Gall in place. He walked Flores, who later stole second, but got Lomison on strikes and Mischel on a groundout to keep the score 5-0.

That’s where it remained through the fourth, as it appeared Root had shaken off first inning struggles to settle into a rhythm. In the top of the fifth, however, more disaster struck: a Nate Graham single and a one out walk to Foti put runners on first and second again. Gall popped out to the catcher Eric Lawler, but Dautel delivered, snapping a line drive deep to left that cleared the fence for a devastating three run homer. That was Root’s last batter, as Mike McDonald came in to try to keep an 8-0 game from getting even further out of hand.

He largely did so, going nearly the rest of the way allowing scattered hits, though one was yet another Dautel homer, this time a solo shot in the 7th. But it didn’t really matter, as the Stars could do nothing against Delgado. Though he struck out just five, he scattered the four hits and three walks he allowed effectively, allowing only a single runner to reach second (Luis Baleia, who stole second in the 6th after a walk), and didn’t allow any past there.

The loss dropped Detroit four games back of Conference-leading Baltimore, who won 6-2 over Ft. Worth, and gave Sacramento its 69th win of the season.