The San Jose Giants stretched their North division lead to five games with a methodical 7-1 win over the Modesto Nuts on Saturday night at John Thurman Field. Scoring in five different innings, the Giants put up seven runs on 10 hits. Andrew Kachel and Carter Howell homered and four pitchers held the Nuts to one run on five hits.
San Jose built a lead with a steady offense that put up two runs in the second inning, two in the third and one in the fourth. Kachel’s third homerun of the year made it 6-0 in the sixth and Modesto had just three singles of offense to that point.
The Nuts got on the scoreboard when a run came in on a sac fly in the eighth, then Howell countered with his 4th home run of the season in the top of the ninth.
Reggie Crawford started for San Jose and went 1 2/3 scoreless innings before giving way to Esmerlin Vinicio who shut out the Nuts for another 2 1/3.
Gerelmi Maldonado (W, 1-0) was the long man with 4 IP, allowing one run on two hits and a walk with six strikeouts. Dylan Cumming finished it off with a scoreless ninth.
Howell was 2-for-5 for the Giants and leads the California league with 60 hits. His .337 batting average is second only to Modesto’s Gabriel Gonzalez (.350), who went 1-for-3.
Seven of the top 10 batting averages in the league belong to Giants and Nuts players: Gonzalez, MOD (.350), Howell, SJ (.337), Diego Velasquez, SJ (.329), Onil Perez, SJ (.307), Matt Higgins, SJ (.306), Freuddy Batista, MOD (.300) and Kachel (.299).
San Jose has won three of the first five games of the series with the finale on Sunday at 2:05PM.
SATURDAY SCORES
LAKE ELSINORE – 6
RANCHO CUCAMONGA – 10
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VISALIA – 1
INLAND EMPIRE – 5
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STOCKTON – 7
FRESNO – 5
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Stockton @ San Jose Gm 3
