First-ever meeting between Saints and Aviators coming to Las Vegas Ballpark this week

The first-ever meeting between the Las Vegas Aviators and St. Paul Saints of the Minnesota Twins organization is set for this upcoming week.

Las Vegas currently sits in first place of the Pacific Coast League with an 18-13 overall record. Most recently, the team took four of six away from Tacoma in Washington.

In total, the Aviators have won seven of their last nine games.

As they return to Las Vegas Ballpark, the team will be greeted by the Saints for a six-game series this week. That stretch is set to begin Tuesday, May 5 with first pitch slated for 7:05 p.m.

Tuesday, L, 15-7

Through 25 night games this season, Las Vegas has dropped 13 of them including Tuesday’s series opening loss to St. Paul. The visitors turned in three four-run innings as part of the victory including slugging six home runs.

Entering the week, Saints first baseman Aaron Sabato had just two home runs through his first 16 games this season. In this one, he had three longballs alone.

Sabato led off the top of the fourth inning with a solo homer. Two innings later, he added a second solo dinger to tie the game at six apiece. That third home run came in the seventh inning to put two more runs on the board.

At that point, Sabato was 4-for-4 with a double, three homers, seven RBI and three runs scored.

Sabato’s double was a three-run swing in the second inning which went down as the first of three four-run innings for St. Paul. The fourth run of the frame came on an RBI double with two outs.

With Sabato’s second dinger, three more runs scored in that sixth inning via a two-run double and an RBI single. Both of the latter things came with two outs.

Reliever Ben Bowden entered the game in the eighth inning and immediately served up a leadoff home run. Two more homers were smacked off Bowden before he left the mound including a solo shot and a two-run big fly.

Fellow reliever Nick Hernandez (0-1, 13.03 ERA) got the loss in a contest that was started by pitcher Joey Estes, who gave up five runs on six hits in five innings of work to go along with three strikeouts and three walks.

Despite the lopsided finish, the Aviators led more than halfway through the game.

Left fielder Cade Marlowe and first baseman Joey Meneses drove in runs on an RBI triple and an RBI sacrifice fly to open the night’s scoring. Teammate Euribiel Angeles added another run on an RBI single in the second inning.

Las Vegas was most-successful in the fifth inning with three two-out RBI singles by the aforementioned Meneses, second baseman Michael Stefanic and designated hitter Chad Wallach. The team’s final run of the game came on an RBI sacrifice fly by catcher Bryan Lavastida.

Wednesday, L, 11-2

After losing the series opener on Tuesday by eight runs, Las Vegas sunk even lower with a nine-run loss on Wednesday night to St. Paul. The Saints didn’t hit Aviator starting pitcher Chen Zhong-Ao Zhuang often but they hit him hard when they did.

However, the visitors did tax the Las Vegas bullpen.

Zhuang made his first start since April 7 since being moved down to Double-A Midland. In his limited time to start the season at the Triple-A level, he went 0-1 with a 9.39 ERA.

Entering the second inning, Zhuang coughed up his first run on a leadoff home run. He followed that up by giving up another leadoff homer in the third inning for a 2-0 St. Paul advantage.

With two outs on the board in the fourth inning, the righty walked a batter and hit a batter with a pitch before the Saints broke a 2-2 tie with an RBI single.

In six innings on the mound, Zhuang gave up three runs on three hits with a strikeout and two walks.

Things really went south in an uneven seventh inning when eight total runs were scored by the visitors. That frame opened with a third leadoff homer for the away team. Soon after, the bases were loaded with just one out tallied against pitcher Luis Morales.

With relief pitcher Wander Suero on the mound, he issued an RBI walk before having two runs plated on a two-run double. All runs were charged to Morales who gave up four runs on two hits with two walks in ⅓ of an inning of work.

Las Vegas found itself down, 10-2 after a two-run single and an RBI double. St. Paul’s final run of the game came on an error in that game-changing seventh inning.

In total, the Saints sent 12 men to the plate in that seventh inning. Through the first two games of the series, the visitors have tallied 24 total hits. Of those 24 total hits, only eight have been singles.

The Aviators had the leadoff man reach in three of the first four innings but couldn’t do much with it as they were limited to just two runs in the loss. Center fielder Henry Bolte was responsible for those two runs on a 479-foot blast in the third inning to knot the game at two apiece.

That’s the furthest home run of any Aviator batter this season while being longer than any dinger hit in all of baseball this year at any level.