Wheeler Getting Into Midseason Form As Las Vegas 51s Edge River Cats 6-2

Las Vegas 6, Sacramento 2

Zack Wheeler took the hill yesterday afternoon against the River Cats and was firing on all cylinders as he made quick work of Sacramento, cruising to his second victory on the season.

Wheeler took the mound looking to build off of his solid outing against the Reno Aces in which he struck out eight over 6 2/3 innings back on April 30th. This time, the Mets top prospect went six shutout frames allowing just three hits and a walk while punching out four. Each of the baserunners allowed were scattered through different innings as the River Cats failed to get a runner to second base with Wheeler on the mound. After struggling mightily to start the season, Wheeler has now put together back-to-back solid efforts in the infamously hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

On the offensive side of things for the Vegas 51s, everyone in the lineup had themselves a base hit with the exception of Juan Centeno and Josh Satin. Las Vegas put up a two-spot in the second on the strength of a double off the bat of Omar Quintanilla to score Wilmer Flores and Jamie Hoffmann, his fifth on the year. They would be held off the board until the top of the sixth when the recently demoted Collin Cowgill (more from him later) scored on a Zack Lutz fly ball to center. The following inning however, is where the game was broken open. With Quintanilla on second and Centeno at first, Cowgill, in just his second game since joining the 51s, clubbed a three-run bomb to left field to make it a 6-0 ballgame. Vegas batters only struck out three times in this game and tallied ten hits and a pair of walks against Sacramento pitching.

Justin Hampson came on in relief of Wheeler and had himself a difficult outing. After plunking Scott Moore, Josh Horton took Hampson deep to make it a 6-2 game. Hampson would eventually retire the side. Greg Peavey and Gonzalez Germen came in and pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth respectively as the 51s would go onto win by a final score of 6-2.