Jhoan Urena’s walk-off homer propels 51s

51s manager Pedro Lopez had a feeling his team would pull out a win Saturday.

He just didn’t think it would happen the way it did.

Lopez had a hunch that second baseman Jeff McNeil would be the hero in the ninth inning. As it turned out, McNeil didn’t get a chance.

Instead, Jhoan Urena was the hero, hitting a walk-off home run in the ninth inning to lift Las Vegas to a 7-6 victory over the Tacoma Rainiers at Cashman Field.

Urena’s home run came after Kevin McGowan allowed a solo homer to Austin Grebeck in the top of the ninth to tie the score 6-6.

Urena, a recent call-up from Class-A Advanced St. Lucie, said through a translator that as soon as he walked out from the dugout, he was looking for something he could handle. Slowly but surely, he said, he’s been making the adjustment from Class A.

He found what he was looking for on a 2-and-1 pitch from Thyago Vieira. It was his second hit of the night and third Triple-A home run.

Two other recent call-ups from St. Lucie — McNeil and John Mora — also contributed, with McNeil going 3-for-4 and Mora 1-for-3.

“Being able to come up and perform and see some of the pitching that they’re seeing here and how they pitch, I think it’s going to help them out to prepare for next year,” Lopez said. “They’re all taking advantage of it. There’s not a doubt in my mind that they are.”

Urena’s homer gave the 51s (54-86) their second straight victory over Tacoma (66-74). It was a game they had been leading since the fifth inning after falling behind 5-0.

Las Vegas starter Luis Mateo, after two perfect innings to begin the game, allowed hits to the first six batters in the third inning.

Logan Taylor provided the biggest dagger, hitting a three-run homer. The Rainiers also scored on RBI doubles from Tuffy Gosewisch and Andrew Aplin.

“I thought he did a really good job in the first, second innings. Everything was down in the zone,” Lopez said. “He mixed pitches well, and then the (third) inning, I think he probably lost focus and kind of the game got away from him. The fourth he went back out, made good pitches and did a good job but just unfortunately he ran out of pitches.”

The 51s chipped away, scoring two runs in the third on McNeil’s double that drove in Urena and Phillip Evans’ ground-out that scored McNeil.

Las Vegas pulled within 5-3 in the fourth on Xorge Carrillo’s double and took the lead in the fifth with a two-run double from Jayce Boyd and Travis Snider’s RBI single.

That lead held up until the ninth but was quickly regained.

“I thought that we were swinging the bats well, even though in the first two innings we didn’t have much success against their pitcher, but I, for whatever reason, just had a feeling that tonight was going to be an offensive night for us, and it ended up being that way,” Lopez said.

Up next

Who: Tacoma Rainiers at 51s

When: 7:05 p.m. Sunday

Where: Cashman Field

Starters: TBD, Rainiers, vs. Mitch Atkins (4-8, 6.00 ERA)

Coming up

Monday: Tacoma at Las Vegas, 12:05 p.m.

Update

The 51s activated right-hander Luis Mateo from the temporarily inactive list. He started Saturday and allowed five runs on six hits in four innings.

Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.