Moore, Lowe power Bees past Aces in 10-inning slugfest

Christian Moore ended it with a sacrifice fly in the 10th, but this game belonged to the long ball long before that. Salt Lake beat Reno 8-7 at Greater Nevada Field in a 10-inning Pacific Coast League grind that turned into a showcase for volatile, must-watch Triple-A baseball, with Moore and Josh Lowe combining for four homers and 1,826 feet of damage.

Lowe set the tone immediately, launching a 499-foot blast in the first inning that announced the Bees were ready to trade shots in a park built for offense. Reno answered with plenty of traffic of its own, and Anderdson Rojas, making the most of a huge night, went 5-for-5 with his first Triple-A home run, a walk, two RBI, three runs and a stolen base as the Aces kept landing punches. By the end, Reno had 16 hits to Salt Lake’s 9, but the Bees were the ones with the final swing.

The middle innings flipped the game back and forth. Lowe tied it in the fifth with a 416-foot solo shot, then Moore answered in the seventh with a 445-foot homer of his own. Moore struck again in the eighth, driving a ball to center that put Salt Lake ahead 6-5, only for the Aces to keep chipping back and make the late innings feel like a relay race with no clean handoff. Moore finished 3-for-5 with two homers and three RBI, while Lowe went 3-for-5 with two homers, three RBI and two runs.

Alek Manoah gave Salt Lake exactly the kind of early stability this game needed, working four innings in his longest outing since a five-inning appearance on May 11 with the Angels. The Bees were 2-1 in Manoah starts after the win, with both victories coming in his last two outings, and the bullpen held once the offense finally created separation. José Fermin got the win to improve to 2-0, while Antonio Menendez took the loss and fell to 0-2.

The final run came after Moore’s sacrifice fly scored Kyren Paris, with Zach Humphreys advancing to third and Arol Vera moving to second, a finish that fit the night’s theme: no cheap outs, no quiet innings, just one big swing after another. Salt Lake finished with eight runs, nine hits and no errors, then left Reno with a series split and a reminder that in the Pacific Coast League, the box score can look absurd and still make perfect sense.