JetHawks put road woes behind them with 14-4 win

Shortstop Antonio Perez started a JetHawks slugfest with his 15th home run of the season.

Friday night, they officially put their recent road troubles to bed with a 14-2 win over the Quakes before a crowd of 5,237 at the Epicenter.

The offense, which looked stagnant in losses to San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga over the past week, put runs up in each of the first five innings, including three in the third and would fail to score in only two frames, the sixth and eighth.

Shortstop Antonio Perez started things off in the top of the first with a mammoth solo home run over the 20-foot scoreboard in left field, his 15th of the year and his 47th extra base hit in 84 games.

"Perez really started it off," manager Mark Parent said, "I knew it was going to be a good game from there on out. Especially the way (Melqui) Torres pitched.

"Even with all the runs we scored, I think Melqui (Torres) was the real story tonight."

Torres took the mound for Lancaster (38-17, 78-47) and dominated the Quakes (22-33, 59-66) for the better part of seven innings.

Torres (6-4) was touched for two runs, both earned, on five hits and racked up eight strikeouts to notch his sixth win.

He looked rough in the second after Al Benjamin and Darren Bush belted back-to-back triples to start the bottom half of the inning. Benjamin scored on Bush's hit and Bush came in on a groundout by John Adams.

"He's been looking good the last few times out," Parent said. "He was battling real well, pitched in very well.

"He wanted to stay out there, but he was at 100 pitches and we had to get some other guys some work."

Torres gave way to reliever Aaron Looper to start the eighth. Looper gave up a one-out infield single to Jeremy Owens but got consecutive fielder's choice groundouts to end the inning scoreless.

First baseman Peanut Williams connected on his first home run in over a month and sixth of the year to start the fifth inning. Williams set the season mark for home runs for the JetHawks last year with 26, but has been plagued this season with a myriad of injuries.

His season mark incidentally, was broken this year by teammate Juan Silvestre, who currently is the Cal League co-leader with 27.

Williams capped the night with a single in the top of the ninth to finish 3-for-4, scoring three times.

"It was nice to see him stretch one out," Parent said. "Get a home run and some base hits."

In the ninth, the JetHawks batted around and tacked on six more runs, starting the inning with five consecutive singles. It marked the 28th time this season that Lancaster has sent 10 or more men to the plate in an inning and 21st time it has scored six or more runs in an inning.

Second baseman Craig Kuzmic added the deathblow with a oneout bases-loaded triple off reliever Antonio Diaz for an 11-run Lancaster lead.

Silvestre added to his leaguehigh RBI total with three on a 2for-6 night, pushing his total to 124.

Scott Maynard, Freddie May and Wilfredo Quintana also had two hits apiece.

Uploaded August 19, 2000