Lancaster is shaken by another big Quake

Lancaster lost for the seventh time in eight games at the Epicenter, despite another strong start by Brandon Parker

By BRIAN ROBIN
Valley Press Staff Writer

Joel Ramirez on second. Jermaine Clark on first. Rancho Cucamonga stopper Angel Aragon on the ropes. The meat of the Lancaster JetHawks lineup on the prowl.

Harvey Hargrove lined out to left? No problem, Alexander Fernandez had his back. . .

Until Rancho Cucamonga first baseman Graham Koonce had Fernandez's liner in his glove. With that, the Quakes had a 6-4 victory over the JetHawks in front of an announced crowd of 4,177 at The Epicenter.

"We needed something like that to happen for us the way these two games have went," Lancaster manager Darrin Garner said. "But it didn't happen. It was one of those times we didn't get a big hit. That would've been a spark plug for us."

Instead, it's Lancaster's seventh loss in eight trips to Jack Benny's favorite comedic locale. Overall, Rancho is 11-4 against the JetHawks this season.

"You have your certain teams that always seem to have your number," said Lancaster's Greg Connors, who had Rancho's number Wednesday night with a 3-for3 outing that included a solo homer. "Those are teams you have to bear down (against), you can't make any errors and you have to pitch well and hit well to win."

In other words, you have to be Brandon Pernell and the Quakes bullpen. After striking out his first two trips, Pernell drove in three of Rancho's six runs with his 3-for-5 night, including a sixth-inning double that brought Rancho back from a 4-0 deficit and put the Quakes ahead for good.

And after Rancho starter John Foran was hit for five hits and four runs in 4 innings, three Quakes pitchers combined for 4 innings of two-hit, shutout ball.

At the outset, this is not where this game was going.

Solo homers by Connors and Wilfredo Quintana, the latter a third-inning shot off the right-field scoreboard, staked the JetHaks to a 2-0 lead.

It became 4-0 in the fifth, which became both the JetHawks' high- and low-water marks.

The inning started when Ramirez reached on shortstop Matt Halloran's error. It continued one out later with Hargrove's single and a walk to Fernandez, then - one out later, climaxed with Jason Regan's bloop single to left.

That hit scored Hargrove, whose earlier single brought home Ramirez.

And that lead lasted an inning.

In the bottom of the fifth, Wilbert Nieves' second of three hits - a two-run single - did the brunt of damage during a four-hit, eightbatter inning.

Meanwhile, to that point, Lancaster starter Brandon Parker was cruising. He allowed but two hits in the first four innings.

The Quakes made up for that in a hurry. After narrowing the gap to 4-3, Rancho parlayed singles by Scott Seal and Jay Ahrendt, a costly balk by Parker, Halloran's sacrifice fly and Pernell's double into two runs.

Uploaded July 21, 1999