McCoy, El Paso bullpen power 9-6 win over Albuquerque

In a park that usually turns line drives into runs, El Paso found the safer formula: pile up extra-base hits, take the free out when it was there, and let the bullpen finish the job. The Chihuahuas beat Albuquerque 9-6 on Wednesday night at Rio Grande Credit Union Field at Isotopes Park, evening the first two games of the six-game set at one win apiece.

Mason McCoy set the tone from the middle of the order, going 3-for-3 with a double, a sacrifice bunt and two RBIs. The veteran shortstop, born in Peoria, Illinois, and drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the sixth round in 2017, kept El Paso moving without wasting at-bats. Yonathan Perlaza added another two-bagger to the pile, driving in a run with his eighth double of the season, a total that tied him for the league lead at the time. Luis Campusano did even more damage, going 2-for-5 with a double, a triple and an RBI while extending his run of multi-hit games to six of his last eight.

That extra-base pressure mattered in a game that still had plenty of teeth. El Paso’s lineup hit seven doubles, matching its season high, and Clay Dungan added a different kind of problem for Albuquerque by swiping his second base in as many games. It was his sixth steal of the season, good for second in the league behind Sugar Land’s Brice Matthews. In Albuquerque, where offense tends to travel quickly, those little edges mattered as much as the loud swings.

The biggest separator came after the starters left. Jason Blanchard worked two scoreless innings, struck out four and faced the minimum six batters to earn the win and improve to 2-0. He has now allowed no runs in six of his seven appearances, and on a night when the Isotopes kept answering, he gave El Paso the clean bridge it needed to reach the finish line. Reiss Knehr handled the save, while Carson Palmquist took the loss for the Isotopes.

Albuquerque did not go quietly. Owen Miller, a former San Diego farmhand, went 4-for-4 with a double and two RBIs and kept the home club within striking distance until the late innings. But El Paso did the harder thing in Albuquerque: it created damage, then escaped damage. The Chihuahuas left with a 9-6 win, a split through two games, and enough proof that in this ballpark, the path to victory runs through timely extra-base hits and a bullpen that can survive the chaos.