Wednesday, Jul. 08, 2009

Dust Devils end skid with 8-5 win in Oregon

From Herald news services

KEIZER, Ore. -- Former Oregon State shortstop Joey Wong had the night off and Tri-City teammate Jeremiah Sammy made the most of his opportunity.

Sammy swatted two homers and had three RBIs on Tuesday to lead the Dust Devils to an 8-5 win over Salem-Keizer before a crowd of 2,267 at Volcanoes Stadium.

The victory snapped a three-game losing streak for the Dust Devils, all against the Volcanoes in a matchup of Northwest League division leaders.

Bo Bowman set the tone for Tri-City with a three-run homer in the top of the fourth inning off reliever Mario Rodriguez, giving the Dust Devils a 3-1 advantage.

Tri-City turned up the power again in the fifth with solo homers by Sammy and Michael Zuanich, which was his league-leading seventh of the season.

Sammy capped off Tri-City's four-homer game in the sixth with a two-run shot off Taylor Rogers.

Wong started the first three games of the series at shortstop before giving way to Sammy, who came into Tuesday's game hitting .219 with no homers and two RBIs in nine games.

"It's one of those things," Tri-City manager Fred Ocasio said. "We had Joey in the lineup the first couple games here and he's been playing. I gave him a rest and his replacement did a good job today.

"Joey Wong is our shortstop. He's the one that's gonna be in there. It was just a rest."

The Volcanoes had 13 hits, including Dan Cook's solo homer in the fifth and Juan Martinez's two-run shot in the sixth that cut the lead to 7-4.