Angel Ortiz homers in Triple-A debut as Reno battles Sacramento

Angel Ortiz announced himself in the loudest possible way, launching a three-run homer in his Triple-A debut as Reno spent the week nudging first-place Sacramento toward the brink of a split. The blast traveled 415 feet and left the bat at 101.9 mph, a swing that gave the Aces one of the signature moments they had been chasing while hanging with the Pacific Coast League West leaders.

That swing fit the tone of a series in which Reno kept finding ways to make the River Cats work. Sacramento entered the May 26 opener at 30-20 and sitting on top of the division, but the Aces weathered early disruptions and still came within two outs of finishing the job on the series. Ortiz, assigned to Reno from Amarillo on May 26, finished his debut 3-for-5 with a run scored and became the fourth Ace this season to homer in his Reno debut and the third to homer in a Triple-A debut. For a lineup looking for instant production, the payoff came immediately.

The pitching was nearly as important. Thomas Hatch gave Reno a six-inning start with two earned runs, six hits and a strikeout, a quality outing that held Sacramento in check and marked Reno’s second straight quality start. It was also the first time since Spencer Giesting and Dylan Ray did it on Aug. 22 and Aug. 23 of last season that the Aces had posted back-to-back quality starts, a small but meaningful sign that the rotation was beginning to steady itself. Hatch, a 31-year-old right-hander from Tulsa, Oklahoma, entered the game 2-0 with a 3.83 ERA.

Reno also kept pressing late. Kristian Robinson opened a ninth-inning rally with a single, then stole second before Tyler Locklear delivered a two-out RBI single to tie the game. The Aces could not finish the comeback in extra innings, but the sequence reinforced the same point that ran through the series: Sacramento had to survive every inning. Reno was not just hanging around; it was creating pressure against the league’s first-place club.

The result capped a stretch that had already included a 5-3, 11-inning win on Jacob Amaya’s walk-off three-run homer on May 30 and a 6-4 victory on May 31 behind Urias’s home run and solid pitching. Sacramento answered with a 13-11 win in the finale after Reno’s ninth-inning rally came up short, but the Aces still left the series with proof that they can punch at contenders even when the standings say otherwise. That matters in a rivalry that had already tilted Reno’s way in May 2025, when the Aces took four of six in Sacramento.