Aces fall to last place in division

The Aces couldn’t manage to get any offense going Tuesday night as they lost 7-0 in the series opener with the Tacoma Rainiers.

Tacoma started scoring off the bat with an RBI single from Nick Franklin with one out in the first.

In the fourth, Franklin hit a solo shot to center off Aces pitcher Charles Brewer to give Tacoma a 2-0 lead. Later in the inning Humberto Quintero hit an RBI single and the inning ended with a 3-0 Rainier lead.

Quintero would hit an RBI double in the sixth. Reno manager Phil Nevin then made the call to the bullpen replacing Brewer with Kevin Munson. Brewer went 6.2 innings allowing seven hits, five runs while striking out five.

“I thought (Brewer) threw the ball a lot better than he has been. There was a lot of positives from his start, I thought, but at the end of the day, when you don’t score you’re not going to win,” Nevin said.

The next batter, Leury Bonilla, hit another RBI single.

Tacoma added two more in the eighth with a 2-run single from Quintero off pitcher Mark Serrano who came in at the start of the inning.

Reno newcomer Matt Stites pitched the last inning after being called up from Double-A Mobile earlier in the day. Stites faced four batters allowing one hit and striking out one.

“I just wanted to get in out there to get is feet wet, get him used to the surroundings and that he didn’t throw too many pitched,” Nevin said. “It worked out well. He threw 11 and will be ready to go tomorrow in the same spot.”

The Aces stranded eight men on base and managed seven hits in the game including two by Nick Evans and Didi Gregorious.

“We just didn’t get that big hit we’d been getting the last couple nights. We had a couple baserunners out there and had the chances,” Nevin said. “We just didn’t get that one big inning, but at the end of the day, seven hits is probably not going to win too many games in this league.”

After dropping the second game of the four-game series Wednesday night, Reno falls to last place in a tight Pacific Coast League Northern division as Tacoma increases their first-place lead to 2.5 games.

Reno went into the fifth inning down 3-1, but tied the game three-all when Nick Ahmed scored on a single from Aaron Cunningham and Gregorious scored off a single from Mike Jacobs.

In the top of the ninth, Tacoma’s Franklin scored the game winning run on a passed ball by catcher Blake Lalli to lift Tacoma to a 4-3 win.

Evans again had two hits for four at-bats and a walk. Lalli also went 2-for-4.

Pitcher Bo Shultz went seven innings allowing five hits and three runs with two strikeouts.

The series continues Friday with start times of 6:35.