Strange night ends with 'Hawks on top

On a night when Lancaster catcher Karl Thompson was promoted in the middle of the game and manager Rick Burleson started serving his suspension, the JetHawks prevailed over Visalia, 11-5.

On a night that could only have happened when there was a full moon or the Major League Baseball trading deadline, the Lancaster JetHawks managed to battle through all the confusion for an 11-5 victory over Visalia at Recreation Park.

"It was an unusual night, but they battled through it," interim manager Scott Steinman said. "They got the hits and made the plays."

Although the JetHawks were happy to take the win, the mid-game promotion of catcher Karl Thompson to Class AA Orlando seemed to overshadow it just a little.

Thompson, who entered Friday batting .271 with 43 runs scored, 40 RBI and six home runs, actually started the game behind the plate and got one at-bat, striking out in the top of the second.

But when his turn came to bat again in the third inning, Thompson was called back into the dugout in favor of Francisco Santiestaban. The move was necessary so Thompson could prepare for an early-morning flight today to Knoxville, Tenn., so he can join the Rays for tonight's game.

"I guess they didn't want to take the chance of me getting injured," said Thompson, who spent the first half of last season with Class AA Memphis before being sent to Lancaster.

Thompson's healthy services were needed in the Southern League as soon as possible because of injuries to Orlando catchers Dusty Wathan and Jim Horner.

"Obviously, you're always happy to be promoted," Thompson said. "You just wish it didn't have to happen because some other guys got injured."

Although Thompson's promotion was the most glaring change for the JetHawks on Friday, it certainly wasn't the only one.

Lancaster manager Rick Burleson didn't suit up for the game, as he started serving his two-game suspension for a bumping and shoving incident with umpire Ryan Bleiberg on July 19 in Modesto. Ironically, Bleiberg was the umpire behind the plate in Friday's game.

While Burleson was forced to sit in the stands both Friday and today, Steinman took over the temporary managerial duties for the first time in his coaching career. And he came away with his first win.

"Every night, Rick goes through things with me," Steinman said. "He did a great job of preparing me for this."

On top of that, Pete Janicki made his first start in a Lancaster uniform after Jason Bond was placed on the disabled list earlier this week with a sore elbow.

Janicki (1-1), who entered the game with a 6.19 ERA, looked like he'd been starting for quite awhile. With the exception of one inning, the right-hander was outstanding, holding the Oaks to four hits and a walk in his five innings of work.

But all four of Visalia's hits off Janicki came in the second inning as the Oaks scored five runs, highlighted by Jose Soriano's grand slam over the left-field wall.

"It seemed like it all happened in five minutes," Janicki said. "The big inning has been a problem for me all season. That's something I have to work on."

That inning erased the 5-0 lead Lancaster built in the first two frames on three hits, two errors and five walks off Oaks starter Elvin Nina.

"I felt like I let my teammates down," Janicki said. "I wanted to go out and shut them down after that inning and give my teammates a chance to get another lead."

That's exactly what he did. Janicki retired 11 of the last 12 batters he faced. Lancaster took advantage, as it immediately regained the lead in the top of the third.

Giomar Guevara opened the inning with a double to left field, before Matt Sachse tripled him in with a shot just inside the rightfield line. Ramon Vazquez's groundout scored Sachse to give the JetHawks a 7-5 lead.

It stayed that way until Santiestaban plated Chris Dean in the seventh. Jayson Bass added a solo home run, his 14th of the season, in the eighth, before Dean doubled in two more insurance runs.