Brewers upend first-place Yankees, 12-10

Starting pitcher Jonathan Camacho kept the first place Northern Yankees at bay long enough to allow the Miller Lite Brewers to build a commanding lead and reliever Byron Kaipat closed the door on a comeback in the waning moments of Friday night’s contest at Francisco M. Palacios baseball field in continuation of the 2005 edition of the Saipan Major League.

Camacho staved off the normally powerful Yankees offense until he finally allowed a run in the bottom of the fourth inning, and finished the evening with seven and two-thirds innings of hard throwing that yielded 10 runs off of 11 hits and nine punch outs.

Kaipat came in to slam the door in the eighth with one and a thirds scoreless innings in which the pinstripers managed just one hit.

The Brewers had the pitchers handling the job from the mound, but were it not for their sluggers producing points, their night would have turned out much differently.

Shortstop Dane Lizama led the charge for the defending champions with 4-for-5 performance at the plate in which he smacked three singles and a triple, scored three times, and drove in two runs in the win.

Second baseman Jess Mesa lit a fire under the Brewers’ offense with a 3-for-4 outing with the stick. The DPS Firefighter cracked three singles for the Brew crew including the game winning RBI in the top of the eighth when he drove in third baseman Tony Celis. After putting himself into scoring position with a stolen base, Mesa later scored the final run for a little insurance for the Brewers.

The win put the Brewers (5-2) within a half-game of the first place Yankees and Ford Rangers at 5-1 apiece.

Everette Ngiraidong started out strong for the Yankees when he struck out lead off hitter Mark Toves to start the game, but back to back hits from Lizama and Celis started a trend that the pitcher would’ve rather not begun. With the exception of one walk, the duo hit everything Ngiraidong had to offer, and chased the hurler from the mound four batters into the fourth inning with a total of seven runs against off of 10 hit in three complete.

Jonathan Jones came in to put a lid on the Brewers, and did a good job for the most part, but he allowed five runs off of seven hits in the final six innings with six strikeouts.

Regardless of their pitching woes, the Yankees may have had a chance in the contest if only they had gotten some production out of their bats before the fourth inning.

Down 9-1, the Yankees scored their first run when Ben Jones singles in Johnson Jones in the bottom of the fourth. The Brewers answered with a run in the top of the fifth when Celis singled in Mel Teregeyo, but the Yankees roared back into the game with a four-run four-hit rally in their next at bat to reel in the Brewers to 10-5.

After a pair of scoreless innings for both teams, the Brewers scored a pair in the top of the eighth before the Yankees rallied to score five to pull within two runs, at 12-10.