Lancaster's pen lays an egg

San Jose scored five runs in the ninth inning to defeat Lancaster on famous Chicken night.

The Famous Chicken's last dance or the Lancaster JetHawks' last stand.

One inning after the Famous Chicken retired to the relative warmth of an autograph table on The Hangar's concourse, the JetHawks laid a ninth-inning egg that laid to waste a good outing by starting pitcher Julio Ayala.

Benji Simonton's three-run home run in the top of the ninth inning highlighted a five-run uprising that sent the San Jose Giants to a 7-3 victory over the JetHawks in front of 3,459.

Like the Chicken, Ayala's evening was over by the ninth. This meant he wasn't around for Lancaster's undoing.

Russ Koehler was.

After striking out two during a 1-2-3 eighth, Koehler opened the ninth by getting to first base too late to take Cirilo Cruz Jr.'s throw on Michael Byas' grounder.

"That's a mistake. You just can't let that happen. You have to beat the guy to the bag," a frustrated Lancaster manager Rick Burleson said. "We're trying to get an out when the next guy's bunting and we hit the guy."

That would be Travis Young.

"Now, it's first and second and they can do a lot of things," Burleson said.

Starting with Josh Tyler's double-play grounder to second baseman Adonis Harrison that turned into a force play when Tyler beat Harrison's throw to first.

Enter Guiseppe Chiaramonte, who scored San

JETHAWKS: Bullpen falters in home loss

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Jose's tying run in the seventh. He didn't have to exert nearly as much effort in the ninth - just stand there and watch Koehler's wild pitch get past catcher Karl Thompson.

That scored Byas with the goahead run. Chiaramonte promptly doubled down the left-field line to score Tyler.

To that point, the game was slipping away from the JetHawks. Simonton pulled it away with his three-run bomb to right field. It gave the big first baseman four RBI and rendered Lancaster's mini-rally in the bottom of the ninth - when the JetHawks scored a run on two hits and had the tying run at the plate - window dressing.

The JetHawks opened like they would close things out early. Brendan Kingman's first Hangar at-bat produced his first Hangar hit - an RBI double to the gap in left-center that scored Cruz (walk).

One inning later, Thompson singled, stole second and scored on Luis Tinoco's two-out single to left.

That ended the offensive portion of the JetHawks' evening. San Jose starter Jeff Andra concluded his five-inning stint by retiring the final 10 batters he faced.

Luis Estrella picked up the baton and, despite giving up singles to Greg Connors and Adonis Harrison, faced the minimum nine batters in his three innings.

For that, Estrella can thank baserunning blunders by Connors, who was picked off in the sixth, and Harrison, who was thrown out at first after rounding the bag too far in the seventh.

Like his predecessor to The Hangar mound, Patrick Dunham, Ayala deserved much better. In what was clearly his best outing of the year, the left-hander struck out seven, did not walk a batter and scattered four hits in seven innings.

Ayala retired 13 straight Giants to open the game, a streak that ended one out into the fifth when Juan Dilone doubled under the glove of a diving Anton French in center field.

That took care of the no-hitter. The shutout disappeared one inning later on Tony Zuniga's towering home run leading off the sixth.

Dilone's line double could be expected. The .231-hitting Zuniga nearly finding Avenue I was a surprise. His solo blast was his first homer of the year and fourth in 179 minor league games.

"It wasn't a bad pitch," Ayala said about the inside curveball. "But it was high and he just got on it."