OREM — Even in rookie league baseball, a team can't waste its scoring chances.
Orem was only one hit short of matching Casper's 10 hits Sunday, but only one team delivered with runners in scoring position. The result was a 7-2 win by Casper at Brent Brown Ballpark, which ends the Rockies' six-game skid and earns them only their fifth win this season against Orem vs. 10 losses.
Casper's Jordan Pacheco, a ninth-round pick from New Mexico, carried the damaging stick. He had a career high with four RBIs on a triple, a double and two singles. The 2007 Mountain West Conference player of the year started his hot night with a two-run triple in the third that had the Owlz chasing the Rockies the rest of the way. Pacheco scored that same inning on Casper's first sacrifice fly in almost a month.
Even a 90-minute rain delay couldn't help the Owlz recover from the early 3-0 deficit. When play resumed, Casper reliever Marco Duarte retired nine of the first 10 Orem hitters he faced. That sole hit was a solo opposite-field homer by Donato Giovanatto to lead off the fifth
Orem's best chance for a big inning came in the seventh. Julio Perez singled to open the frame, after which Christopher Garcia hit what should have been a double-play grounder to first but the throw from Casper's Jeff Cunningham to second base bounced in the dirt — which put two runners on with no outs. However, Perez figured he had been thrown out at second and started walking toward the dugout when he was tagged out.
The next hitter, Giovanatto, singled to left . With two on and one out, Anel De Los Santos then blasted a deep fly to the track that turned out to be nothing more than a loud 410-foot out. Ryan Kennedy looked like he was going to bail the Owlz out when he ripped a liner headed toward the right-field corner. Casper's Chad Lembeck had other ideas, however, and made a diving catch to rob Kennedy of the game-tying hit.
The Rockies shook a little salt in the wound in their next at bat. Scott Robinson drew a lead-off walk, and Pacheco punished the Owlz again with a run-scoring double deep to the right-field gap.
Orem tried to catch the Rockies again in the bottom half by putting the first two runners on base, before a 4-6-3 double play doused the flames some. Jay Brossman did slap a two-out single to right to score a run, which also brought the tying run to the plate, but Perez fanned on a check swing.
Casper then put the game away with three runs in the ninth.
The Owlz, 15-11 in the second half, drop to two games behind Idaho Falls in the Pioneer League Southern Division. Orem opens a three-game road set with the Chukars tonight.
E-mail: jimr@desnews.com