El Paso capitalizes early, tops Tacoma 4-1 in series game three

Ryan Bliss gave Tacoma the start it wanted, then the Rainiers let the night slip away at the first turn. His leadoff single in the opening inning should have set up an early punch, but El Paso seized the moment instead, turning a small opening into a 4-1 win Thursday at Southwest University Park.

The Chihuahuas struck first in the bottom of the first when Jase Bowen reached, moved up on a sacrifice bunt and came home on a Pablo Reyes bunt play that turned into the game’s opening run. By the end of the second, the early gap had grown. Anthony Vilar singled, Bowen followed with a two-run homer, and Tacoma was already chasing 3-0 before its lineup had found any rhythm.

Tacoma finally broke through in the fourth, but only barely. Brennen Davis doubled for his seventh double of the season, extending his extra-base-hit streak to three straight games and tying the longest such run by a Rainier this season. Victor Labrada reached on an error, Davis scored, and the Rainiers cut the deficit to 3-1. That was the window the game offered Tacoma, and it closed quickly. Dane Dunning settled in after the fourth-inning run and retired six straight batters, preventing the Rainiers from building any second wave.

The late innings never produced a real threat. Tacoma finished with one run and never scored again, a quiet end after a series that had already been loud enough to swing both ways. The Rainiers had dropped a 10-9 extra-inning game on May 5 and an 11-10 back-and-forth loss on May 6, so Thursday’s defeat felt less like an outlier than the latest example of how fast a Pacific Coast League series can turn when a club misses its early chance.

There were still a few individual positives inside the loss. Gunner Mayer worked 0.2 scoreless innings and has now recorded 10 scoreless outings in 11 appearances, a stretch that continues to make him one of Tacoma’s steadier bullpen arms. But the bigger picture was the scoreboard: Tacoma fell to 16-20, El Paso improved to 18-18, and the Rainiers were left to reset quickly with Casey Lawrence scheduled to start game four Friday at 5:35 p.m. PT.