Quakes Score 21

Each team hit 3 home runs, but Rancho Cucamonga scored 21 runs as they as the Quakes (Angels) beat the Lancaster JetHawks (Diamondbacks) 21-8.

Ben Johnson and LeBlanc led off the sixth with singles, and after moving into scoring position on a wild pitch both came home on Ryan Leahy’s two-run double. Michael Collins followed with a ground ball that shortstop Derek Bruce whiffed on, allowing Leahy to score and putting the Quakes up 9-6. Leahy delivered another big blow in the seventh, driving a three-run double to the wall in left before scoring on Collins’s RBI single as Rancho Cucamonga took a 13-6 lead. The fun continued in the eighth as the Quakes tacked on six more runs while sending a dozen men to the plate. Baltazar Lopez and Freddy Sandoval led off with doubles to make it 14-6, Johnson added a sacrifice fly to make it 15-6, and after backup catcher Richard Mercado had entered to pitch Collins sent a three-run double into the right field corner for an 18-6 advantage before Reilly lined an RBI single to right.

Johnson got the Quakes to the 20-run mark in the top of the ninth with a solo homer to right off Bruce (yes, the shortstop), and LeBlanc followed with a single. Leahy walked with one out to move LeBlanc to second, and Collins then hit a roller that snuck into right field. Quakes manager Bobby Mitchell gave LeBlanc the stop sign at third but LeBlanc ran right through it and scored easily to rewrite the record book. The previous record of 20 runs was set August 10, 1997 at Visalia.

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The Quakes and the JetHawks play in the California League (Class A Advanced).