Reno led early in the game, but stumbled late as an eighth inning home run handed the Aces a loss against the Tacoma Rainiers, Triple-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night at Cheney Stadium.
Tommy Troy continued the torrent start to his AAA career with a triple to lead the game off before coming in to score on an Andy Weber sacrifice fly for the first run of the night. The fifth-ranked prospect has at least one knock in each of his first five games with Reno, slashing .409/.458/.773 thus far.
The big inning for the Aces came in the third as A.J. Vukovich plated a run on an RBI single and was quickly followed by a two-RBI double from Ivan Melendez to give Reno an early lead. Vukovich now has hits in 10 of his last 11 games, hitting .364 with an 1.145 OPS over that span. For Melendez, his eight RBI since joining the Aces leads the team over the last week.
Along with Weber’s first inning sac fly, the left-handed hitting infielder recorded the only multi-hit game for the BLC-Nine going 2-for-4 with a run scored along with the RBI. He now has two hits in three consecutive games, upping his season average to a .304 clip.
The Aces will look to bounce back in the series finale at Tacoma tomorrow afternoon. First pitch from Cheney Stadium scheduled for 1:35 p.m.
Reno Aces contributed to this report.
