SALT LAKE CITY — It is safe to say the Salt Lake Bees, offensively, are heating up faster than an out-of-control wildfire.
The Bees hit early and often and used their newfound scoring prowess to claim a 6-3 victory over the Portland Beavers on Wednesday night at Spring Mobile Ballpark. With the victory, Salt Lake won its season-best fifth straight game to move to 53-51 overall.
In that span, the Bees have tallied a whopping 51 runs compared to just 16 for their opponents.
"Everybody feels comfortable in the box," said Peter Bourjos, who has tallied a PCL-best 52 hits this month. "Hitting is contagious. One guy gets a hit and the next guy (does) and it's just carrying over.
"Everybody is confident and the pitching is doing a great job of getting us back in there and getting us right back up the plate."
After two scoreless innings Tuesday, Salt Lake found a major offensive spark in the third inning.
Five consecutive batters singled for the Bees and Ryan Budde, Bourjos and Luis Figueroa cashed in on three of those hits with a trio of runs that put Salt Lake ahead 3-0.
The Bees pushed that advantage to 6-0 by the seventh inning when Michael Ryan blasted an inside-the-park home run to right field to put an exclamation point on Salt Lake's impending rout.
Ryan was the first Bees player to get an inside-the-park homer since Bourjos did it against Colorado Springs in a 7-2 victory on May 16th, 2009.
Portland prevented a shutout when Josh Barfield singled with the bases loaded an inning later, driving in Craig Stansberry and Mike Baxter to cut Salt Lake's lead to 6-2. Wily Mo Pena added a third run before Bobby Cassevah got the final out.
Budde ended any comeback hopes when he doubled to left field to bring in a pair of runners to make it 8-3 in the bottom of the eighth.
"We're executing and playing well and picking up big hits at the right time," Bees manager Bobby Mitchell said.
Ryan Vogelsong made his first start for Salt Lake after being signed by the Los Angeles Angels this week. Vogelsong, who spent six seasons with the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates earlier in his career, pitched the first two innings before giving way to Matt Shoemaker. He struck out five batters and gave up three hits in that stretch.
Shoemaker fared well in relief Vogelsong. In 5 2?3 innings on the mound, he allowed four hits, two runs and fanned a batter while extending Portland's scoring drought until the eighth inning.
The Bees continue their series with the Beavers tonight at 7:05 p.m.
BEES NOTES: Vogelsong appeared in 25 games and made seven starts for Triple-A club Lehigh Valley before being released on July 16. He was originally drafted by the Giants in 1998 and played in 120 games with that club and the Pirates from 2000 to 2005. ... Wednesday's attendance was 6,582. ... Sutton went 2-of-2 from the plate to extend his hitting streak to a career-best seven games.
e-mail: jcoon@desnews.com