When the Salt Lake Buzz get good starting pitching, they are tough to beat.
Monday night, in their regular-season finale at Franklin Quest Field, the Buzz got just that in a 7-3 win - their third in four games - against the Pacific Coast League Northern Division champion Vancouver Canadians.In a game that meant little to anyone, since these teams were already slated to meet in a best-of-five playoff beginning Wednesday, Salt Lake starter Oscar Munoz pitched seven strong innings, giving up two runs on four hits and five walks, while striking out five.
And yes, this was the same Oscar Munoz who had posted a 10.36 ERA in six starts since being re-promoted from Nashville a month ago.
"Oscar just had it going, and he got some key plays," said Buzz skipper Scott Ullger, who was managing his 1,000th minor-league game. "Anytime you get starting pitching like that, get us into the middle innings, you've done your job."
Doing the job for Munoz meant not giving up a hit until the fifth inning, giving his teammates time to post a 4-0 lead. The Buzz batters, who scored 23 runs in four games against the PCL's best pitching staff, jumped on Vancouver starter Shad Williams for four runs, all earned, in the first inning.
Jeff Carter led off that inning with a single, followed by Rich Becker's run-scoring double off the wall in left. One out later,
Bernardo Brito singled in Becker, and Dan Masteller followed that up with a homer that just cleared the fence in left.
Brito provided the game's most suspenseful moments, at least in the pressbox. Coming into the game, the Buzz's slugging DH was tied with Albuquerque's Ron Coomer for the PCL RBI lead, at 120. Early in the contest, the word came that Albuquerque's game was over and Coomer had knocked in three runs. Brito got one RBI in the first, then added another in the fifth with a single to right, scoring Becker, who had doubled again.
In the seventh Brito struck out, but in the eighth his teammates rallied to give him another chance. With two outs and two on, Scott Stahoviak hit a shot to first that was ruled an error, loading the bases for Bernardo, who promptly struck out swinging.
(Ironically, Brito lost an RBI earlier in the season when he hit a homer but was ruled out for passing another baserunner.)
Stahoviak provided the night's other highlight moment, with a seventh-inning home run that cleared the scoreboard in rightfield on its way to Murray.
On the attendance front, the Buzz faithful once again put up impressive numbers. The official count was 14,118 - an amazing figure for a season-ending game of little import - for a season total of 713,224.