Nanita’s homer in ninth powers 51s
Ricardo Nanita led off the ninth inning with a home run, starting a three-run rally that sent the 51s to a 4-1 Pacific Coast League victory over the Tucson Padres on Saturday in Fort Wayne, Ind.
After Nanita belted an 0-and-2 pitch from Brad Brach (0-1) over the fence in left field to break a 1-1 tie, Jayson Nix sandwiched a single between two groundouts. Chris Woodward and Kevin Howard then followed with consecutive RBI singles.
The Padres (46-47) brought the tying run to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. But Las Vegas left fielder Darin Mastroianni threw out Kyle Blanks at the plate trying to score from second base on Guillermo Quiroz's single, ending the game.
Sean Henn (3-1) worked 1 1/3 perfect innings in relief of starter Robert Ray, who held Tucson to one run on five hits and no walks in seven innings. He struck out four. Danny Farquhar pitched around two singles and a walk over the final two-thirds of an inning to earn his eighth save.
The Padres opened the scoring in the third inning, with Ali Solis coming in from third base on Steve Tolleson's groundout to second. Solis singled and Cedric Hunter doubled to open the inning.
The 51s (48-45) tied it in the seventh on Nix's two-out home run, his second homer since joining Las Vegas on Tuesday, off reliever Pat Neshek.
Samuel Deduno started for Tucson and shut out the 51s on two hits and one walk over six innings. He struck out five.
Nanita, Nix, Woodward and Ramon Vazquez each went 2-for-4 for Las Vegas.
