Story By Marcelo Figueroa

Behind another solid start from Hideki Irabu, Long Beach shut out the Yuma Scorpions 3-0 at Blair Field. The Fleet is now 15-16 on the season.

In the bottom of the 3rd Steve Young started things off with a leadoff walk for the Fleet. He then stole second base to put himself in scoring position with less than two outs. After a fly out and a pop out Omar Bramasco came up with two outs. Bramasco doubled to deep left field driving in Young, extending his hitting streak to 21 games and giving Long Beach the early 1-0 lead.

Then in the bottom of the 6th the Armada was able to get some insurance. Napoleon Calzado started it off with a base hit before stealing second. He advanced to third on a wild pitch. Daryl Jones then walked to put runners on the corners with just one out. Another wild pitch from starter Yesid Salazar allowed Calzado to score and give the Fleet a 2-0 lead at the end of six innings of play.

Yuma threatened in the top half of the 7th when a couple of singles from Carlos Villalobos and Ismael Castro put runners at first and second with two outs. But Irabu was able to complete his seventh inning of work by getting Carlos Pupo to fly out to right field to keep the game Long Beach 2, Yuma 0.

After seven strong innings from Irabu, who surrendered just five hits while striking out four, Koichi Misawa came in and pitched a solid inning of relief, collecting two Ks along the way.

Andy Bouchie and Matt Edgecombe drew back-to-back walks in the bottom of the 8th to put runners on first and second with no outs for the Fleet. Calzado grounded out to third, advancing both runners into scoring position with just one out for Daryl Jones. With a full count Jones came through with a sacrifice fly to left field to cushion the Armada’s lead to 3-0.

In the 9th manager Garry Templeton brought in Ryne Tacker to shut the door on the Scorpions. After walking the first two batters he faced, Tacker got Carlos Villalobos to ground into a double play and struck out Reynaldo Rodriguez to end the game and collect his 5th save of the season.

Long Beach has taken two out of three so far in this four game series against the Scorpions. The final game of the series will be Friday night. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35pm. Pitcher Jose Lima will sing the national anthem and Scott Lonergan will get the start for the Fleet. There will be a fireworks show at the completion of Friday night’s game.