Yankees remain top of the heap

The Pirates had a chance to get within one game of the Northern Yankees Friday night, but they couldn’t keep up, losing 11-6 to the defending champs at the Francisco M. Palacios baseball field.

With the win, the Yankees are now alone in first place atop the Saipan Major League, a full game ahead of the second place Brewers.

It took them about four innings to get warmed up, but the Yanks were able to take a 7-4 lead in the top of the fifth and outlast the third place Pirates.

It all started kind of slowly, as both teams went down 1-2-3 to open the first.

The Yankees got on the board first in the second when Mel Sakisat and Ned Norita crossed the plate giving them a 2-0 lead

The Pirates took the lead, scoring three in the third as Tyrone Attao, Dane Lizama and Mario Sablan made it home courtesy of some quality hitting from the trio, Ed Kapileo and heads up base running.

The Pirates hurt themselves in the fourth with a pair of throwing errors that aided Norita and Tony Luzama in getting the lead back for the pinstripers.

Answering with an untimely error of their own, the Yankees allowed Tyrone Attao to make his way across the plate in the bottom of the inning to tie the game at four.

Shaking things up a bit in the fifth, the Yanks replaced Johnty Jones with J.M. Reyes, and it worked. Suddenly, the Yankees out three more tallies on the board, and the game was in their control going into the bottom of the fifth.

Sablan made his way around the bases again for the Pirates, cutting the lead to 7-5 with plenty of game remaining.

After getting on base via a Tomokane bean ball, Eric Lizama added to the lead when Reyes hit him. Reyes ran past the catcher as well, thanks to Robert Bansil and the sixth would end 9-5.

A goose egg from the ‘Rates and a couple more runs for the Yanks in the seventh pretty much wrapped it up, as the score going into the eighth was 11-5.

Jerome Delos Santos came in to pitch for the Pirates and got to work, blanking the Yanks, and picking up a couple of strikeouts to fire his team.

Chris Camacho pitched his eighth and final inning for the Yankees, handing the Pirates another scoreless stanza.

Three up and three down for the Yanks set the stage for one last shot at an upset in the bottom of the ninth for the Pirates.

Although Lizama was able to cut the lead to 11-6, Yankees closer Jonathan Jones cancelled any plans that the Pirates might have had at a comeback when he K’d Delos Santos to end the game.

SML action continues Wednesday night, May 19, as the Pirates square off against the Brewers at the Francisco M. Palacios Field. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:30pm.