Belflower's streak ended as Hawks lose

So did Lancaster's victory over San Jose.

Flaherty, San Jose's top slug-ger, turned on a ninth-inning in-side fastball from Belflower and deposited it over Lancaster's bull-pen in left field, tying the game to force extra innings.

Two innings later, the Giants loaded the bases against Belflower on a single, a walk and a hit bats-man and won the game, 4-3, on a wild pitch.

Belflower, the Diamondbacks 17th-round pick in this past June's draft, hadn't allowed an earned run in 24 innings entering Thursday's game and had closed 10 of 11 save opportunities. But Jake Messner reached on Matt Kata's error to open the ninth and Flaherty tied the game an out lat-er.

"I was going to give up a run at some point," Belflower (2-2) said. "Whether this time out, next time out, or next season."

Flaherty's 22nd home run wast-ed tremendous pitching perform-ances by starter Brandon Webb and reliever Jamie Gann to limit San Jose to one run on three hits over the first eight innings.

"He's got a slow bat, so we fig-ured we could go inside," Belflower said. "In that situation, it's a stu-pid decision. In a normal situation, that's what you do. But in that sit-uation, all he's doing is trying to hit it out and he cheated on me."

JetHawks manager Scott Coolbaugh blamed catcher J.D. Closser.

"Closser thought he could come in and jam him, I guess," Coolbaugh said. "J.D. should real-ize he's got a guy second in the league in home runs. It's pretty ob-vious you don't want to miss in-side. You want to miss away."

Webb turned in his second con-secutive sterling - if short - per-formance. He allowed one un-earned run in six innings on three hits. His sinker was effective, helping induce 12 groundball outs. He struck out four and walked two. Last Friday, Webb took a no-hitter into the sixth inning.

Coolbaugh limited Webb to six innings because of the organiza-tion's concern over the number of innings he's pitch this season. In 27 games, Webb has pitched 154 innings in his first full profession-al season.

Through the first five innings, San Jose starter Vance Cozier was just as effective, allowing one hit.

The JetHawks finally put a few hits together in the sixth. Kata opened the inning with a single and Brian Gordon doubled him home.

Jamie Sykes' two-out single scored Gordon, giving the JetHawks the 3-1 lead.

The JetHawks scored a run on walk, a single, a sacrifice bunt and Jeff Waldron's run-scoring ground-out.

The Giants tied the game in the third on two JetHawks errors.

The JetHawks have committed 200 errors for the season, includ-ing 18 in the last five games and three on Thursday.

"I would think some guys would start taking some pride in defense a bit," Coolbaugh said. "I don't know if these guys realize it, but they're going to get labeled as non-factors defensively if they keep this up. We basically gave them two runs."

Giants reliever Todd Uzzell (1-1) pitched two scoreless innings to earn the win despite three walks.

Notes
JetHawks hitting coach Rick Schu left the team for the season's final 12 games to tend to a family medical emergency. Schu missed seven games last week before re-turning to the team for the three games at Mudville, but he did not come with the team to San Jose and will not return. Strength and conditioning coach Ryan Stoneberg will serve as the team's first base coach for the final 12 games.

Matt Kata has committed 26 errors at second base and Billy Martin has played ust 46 of his 125 games at third base, but that didn't stop the pair from making the Cal League All-Star team. Kata's 295 batting average and 77 runs are enough to overlook the errors and Martin's .310 batting average, 106 RBIs and 26 home runs demand a spot on the team.

Lake Elsinore first baseman Xavier Nady was named the league's Most Valuable Player and San Bernardino Pitcher Matt Thornton was named Pitcher of the Year. Nady is hitting .305 with 25 home runs and 92 RBIs in a pitcher-friendly stadium. Thorn-ton leads the league in wins (13) and strikeouts (179) and is second in ERA (2.43).

Uploaded August 24, 2001