Over their past 14 games against the
Portland Beavers coming into last night, the Tacoma Rainiers had made it a
practice of beating up on their southern rivals, winning 12 of those meetings
and outscoring Portland by a margin of 50 runs. But tonight, the 15th time
proved the charm for the Beavers, who won their second in a row against the
Rainiers for the first time since last season with a 7-1 victory at Cheney
Stadium.

Portland (42-45) scored five runs and
rattled eight hits off of Tacoma starter Andy Baldwin, who seemed to have
trouble keeping his fastball down in the strike zone, giving up two home runs
and two doubles over his six innings of work.

The first of the Beavers’ two
roundtrippers came in the top of the first. With two outs, Baldwin gave up an
0-2 line-drive single to third baseman Peter Ciofrone to bring slugger
Valentino Pascucci to the dish. Portland’s cleanup hitter promptly deposited
the third pitch he saw from Baldwin off the top of the right field wall to put
the Beavers ahead 2-0.

Yuniesky Betancourt–on a rehab
assignment from the Mariners–returned to Cheney Stadium for the first time
since 2005, and made an immediate impact in the top of the first. After a
leadoff triple by Jerry Owens–his second three-bagger in two days–Betancourt delivered
a booming double off former Rainiers teammate Cha Seung Baek to drive in Owens.

Baldwin held things together over the
next two frames, but the longball came back to haunt him in the fourth. Center
fielder Drew Macias led off the inning with his third circuit shot of the
season to touch off a four-hit, three-run inning for the Beavers.

Not even the Tacoma bullpen was immune.
After lefty Cesar Jimenez tossed a 1-2-3 seventh, Portland tacked on two more
runs off of reliever Jesus Delgado in the top of the eighth. Delgado was one
strike away from ending the inning, going up 0-2 on Macias with two down.
Delgado’s next pitch ran inside, plunking the Beavers center fielder in the
right thigh.

Danny Putnam–starting his first Triple-A
game–then spanked the second pitch he saw off the wall in left center field to
stretch the Beavers’ lead to 6-1. Another newly-acquired Beaver–former Seattle
farmhand Yamid Haad–followed Putnam’s shot with a line-drive single up the
middle for Portland’s second straight two-out RBI base knock.

The lone bright spot for the Rainiers
(40-46) was Owens, who went 3-for-4 for his fifth multi-hit game in the past 10
contests to raise his average to .297.

Notes: Tonight was the first time in the past four games that the Rainiers have failed to tally 10 hits … With his ninth-inning pinch-hit double, Prentice Redman stretched his hitting streak to five games.