River Cats crush Express 12-1 behind seven-run sixth and seventh innings
Sacramento turned Dell Diamond into a depth-chart audit, scoring in three straight innings and burying Round Rock 12-1. Aeverson Arteaga’s first Triple-A homer came in the six-run seventh.
Sacramento turned Dell Diamond into a stress test Round Rock could not pass, breaking open a tight game with four runs in the sixth and six more in the seventh on the way to a 12-1 rout Thursday night. The River Cats scored in the first, sixth and seventh innings, and the late avalanche exposed just how quickly the Express’ pitching depth can unravel when the first line of resistance disappears.
The damage started before Round Rock had a chance to settle in. Sacramento jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first on a Buddy Kennedy RBI double and a Grant McCray sacrifice fly, putting immediate pressure on Jose Corniell. The right-hander settled down enough to give Round Rock five innings, allowing four hits and two earned runs without a walk, and that mattered even in defeat. It was Corniell’s longest outing in nearly eight months, a useful sign for a starter trying to show he can hold a staff together beyond a short burst.
Round Rock finally cracked the scoreboard in the bottom of the fifth when Jose Herrera singled home a run to cut the deficit to 2-1. That was as close as the home club got. Sacramento answered with the kind of inning that breaks a game and sometimes a roster: four runs in the sixth, then six more in the seventh, all while the River Cats stacked 13 hits against a defense that committed two errors and never found a clean escape.
The seventh was the knockout. McCray added another RBI single, Drew Cavanaugh followed with a two-run double, and Aeverson Arteaga unloaded a three-run homer, his first at Triple-A. For Arteaga, a 23-year-old shortstop from Chirgua, Venezuela, it was the kind of blast that lands on a parent-club radar fast because it came in the middle of a runaway and not in empty innings. McCray, already carrying recent big-league and upper-minors experience, helped force the collapse with a multi-RBI night that fit the tone Sacramento set from the opening frame.
Round Rock did get a multi-hit effort from Gilberto Celestino, who went 2-for-3 with a walk, but the rest of the lineup could not turn traffic into a rally. The Express dropped to 16-26 and were held to one run or less for the third time in May, while Sacramento improved to 22-18 and took the opener of the six-game series that runs through May 17 after winning the night before, 6-5.
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