Bond looks strong in return to mound

No, not Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan or even George Lazenby.

The Lancaster JetHawks' Jason Bond is back. And after a month on the disabled list with a strained medial-collateral ligament in his left elbow, this Bond seems to be in midseason form.

After sitting out almost all of May, Bond looked outstanding in kick-starting the JetHawks to a 9-3 victory over Modesto on Sunday afternoon.

"I felt pretty good," Bond said. "I wanted to go out and try to compete and use all my pitches."

That included the curveball, which was the pitch that had caused Bond pain in his pitching elbow. Bond said that same pitch was also the culprit when he suffered a more severe sprain of the ligament while he was playing at Arizona State.

"I didn't feel any soreness today," Bond said. "We'll see how it feels (Monday). Let's just hope I'm sore in the good spots and not in the elbow."

Bond, who was on a 55-pitch limit in his first start since May 2, used 53 pitches to get through the first four innings of Sunday's game. Thirty of those pitches were for strikes, as Bond, who was among the league leaders in strikeouts before the injury, struck out four A's batters.

He allowed two walks and one hit and helped his team jump out to a 3-0 lead after four innings.

"He looked like he didn't even miss a beat," Lancaster manager Rick Burleson said. "For a guy who's been off as long as he has, to come back and throw strikes like he did is great."

Still rolling

The Lancaster offense also didn't miss a beat after its record setting 24-run, 23-hit game against the A's on Saturday night.

The JetHawks followed that up with a nine-run, eight-hit performance on Sunday afternoon.

"You're always worried about getting shut down the game after you have a night like we did (Saturday)," Burleson said. "You think maybe you're due for a 2-1 or 1-0 game. But we kept things going."

Brendan Kingman got the ball rolling with a solo home run into the batter's eye in center field in the second inning. Although the blast was his seventh of the season, it was his first since May 23.

"I didn't think it was out," said Kingman, who leads the league with a .365 average. "I thought it was a double off the wall. But it's nice to get a home run and get that burden off my shoulders."

Lancaster added a second run in the frame, when Luis Tinoco doubled and scored on Jayson's Bass' RBI single.

Cirilo Cruz drove in Joel Ramirez in the third inning, and Bass scored what turned out to be the winning run on a wild pitch from Modesto starter Kevin Gregg in the fourth.

Ramirez scored his second run of the game on a Modesto error in the seventh.

Even with all those runs, Lancaster only led 5-3 entering the bottom of the eighth. But thanks to back-to-back two-run singles by Anton French and Francisco Santiestaban, the JetHawks took a commanding lead.

Allan Westfall improved his record to 2-2 by allowing two earned runs in three innings of relief of Bond. He allowed two hits and three walks.

Aaron Scheffer converted his sixth consecutive save opportunity and eighth save of the season by allowing only one unearned run in the eighth and ninth innings.

Home sweet home

Sunday's game against Modesto was the JetHawks' final appearance at Lancaster Municipal Stadium during the first half.

After starting the season 7-13 at home, Lancaster rebounded to win 13 of its last 15 games at The Hangar, including seven straight.

The JetHawks wrap up the first half on the road for three games at Bakersfield and three more at Modesto.

Packing them in

With the relatively warmer temperatures, fans have started to turn out at The Hangar. Sunday's crowd of 4,345 was the third consecutive over 4,000, following Saturday's 4,023 and Friday's seasonhigh 4,410.