JetHawks can't handle prosperity

By DAVE RASBACH
Valley Press Staff Writer

The JetHawks were playing the team with the worst record in the California League and the wind wasn't even blowing out at Maverick Stadium. What else could you ask for?

For 4 1/2 innings, the JetHawks took advantage of those perfect conditions.

But in the bottom of the fifth, the same gremlins that have caused trouble for the JetHawks most of the season once again showed their faces and spelled disaster. High Desert scored six runs in the inning to erase a three-run Lancaster lead and claim an 8-5 victory before 2,515 sun-drenched fans on a perfect afternoon in Adelanto.

The loss ended the JetHawks' hopes of winning back-to-back games for the first time since they took three in a row April 9-12, a streak that has spanned 34 games and in which the JetHawks have gone 11-23.

It also prevented Bienaisz (0-6) from halting his own personal losing streak. The right-hander has dropped all six games he has started this season.

"I thought we were going to get over this," Lancaster first baseman Greg Connors said. "I'm speechless right now. I thought we were going to do it."

The entire team felt that way when it jumped out to a 3-0 lead after three innings.

Connors scored the first run on an error in the second inning. Luis Figueroa then tripled in Jermaine Clark and scored on Connors' double in the third inning.

After High Desert answered with the first of three runs scored by No. 9 hitter Alex Cintron - who also had three extra-base hits - Lancaster rebuilt a three-run advantage in the top of the fourth when Harvey Hargrove doubled in Rafael Lopez.

"We opened up hitting pretty good," said Connors, who went 2for-3 with two doubles, an RBI and a run scored. "We were playing good defense. Everything was going our way."

But in the bottom of the fifth inning, everything suddenly changed.

Bieniasz, who had limited the Mavericks to four hits, one walk and one run in the first four innings, suddenly had problems finding the strike zone, and the JetHawks' three-run lead quickly crumbled into a three-run deficit.

"That one big inning came back and bit us," JetHawks manager Darrin Garner said.

Cintron opened the inning with a ground-rule double, but should have been thrown out by Lopez when he tried to advance to third on a wild pitch. He was ruled safe when Joshua Taylor dropped the throw.

"We keep seeming to give them extra outs at the wrong times," Garner said.

Taylor replaced Figueroa, who left the game with soreness in his left hand from a previous injury, in the fifth inning.

After Ronald Calloway drew a walk, Cintron scored on Abraham Nunez's sacrifice fly to center field, which was the second out of the inning. Bieniasz couldn't get out of the inning, walking Jack Cust before Ron Hartman doubled in Calloway and Cust to tie the game 4-4.

Things continued to deteriorate as Bieniasz walked Wyley Steelmon and Dan Meier crushed a three-run homer over the rightcenter field wall to give the Mavericks their first lead of the game.

That spelled the end for Bieniasz, who was charged with seven earned runs on seven hits and four walks in 4 2/3 innings.

"I kind of lost track of how many pitches he'd thrown," Garner said. "He threw (79) pitches, and we were going to pull him after 70, because he seems to get a little tired after that."

Prior to the fifth, 36 of Bieniasz's 56 pitches (65.3 percent) were for strikes. But during the fifth, only 9 of 23 (39.1 percent) were for strikes.

That was all the Mavericks needed to win their fourth game in five days.

Reliever Doug Kohl (1-0) picked up the win, while Jeff Wilson pitched two scoreless innings to notch his first save of the year.

"We're not playing bad, bad baseball," Garner said. "We're just not getting the job done. Hopefully we'll turn things around."