John Ely entered Sunday's game with five straight no-decisions.
The Albuquerque Isotopes' right-hander decided enough was enough, taking charge from the start and dominating the Reno Aces en route to a 3-1 complete-game victory in front of 5,549 fans at Isotopes Park.
"It's nice to get a tally mark in the 'W' column," Ely said. "You know at some point you're going to get a decision. It was nice to get a positive one."
It was the first nine-inning complete game of Ely's professional career.
"It was one of those days when (the ball) was coming out of your hand right," Ely said. "It's a little easier to win when you throw strikes with all of your pitches."
Ely (2-1) allowed just three hits — a single by Barry Enright in the third, a solo home run off the bat of Cody Ransom in the fifth and an infield single by Cole Gillespie with two outs in the ninth. Ely then struck out Brandon Allen looking to finish the game.
Albuquerque manager Lorenzo Bundy said the key was that Ely did not try to do too much on the mound.
"Most of the time when he gets in trouble he's hard on himself, he battles with himself," Bundy said. "We've talked about that many times, when you're on that mound ... it's you against the hitter. He was really composed today, it was really nice to see."
Ely agreed.
"I've been able to get over that frustration factor a little bit in my last few starts," Ely said. "It doesn't pay to beat yourself up. You can't battle yourself and hitters, especially at this level, it's just too much. Just focus on what I can do. Today we were able to keep them off-balance."
He needed just 89 pitches to get through the first eight innings and finished with 107. Ely walked just one and struck out seven as the Isotopes (24-18) took three of four in the series.
"It was a truly big-time performance for him, especially against the club he did it against," Bundy said, noting that the Aces entered the series leading the Pacific Coast League in batting, on-base and slugging percentage.
Enright (1-2) was nearly as good for Reno (26-18), allowing just two runs on five hits and one walk while striking out five in seven innings.
The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fourth. Dee Gordon led off with a triple to center field and scored on Ivan De Jesus Jr.'s sacrifice fly.
Eugenio Velez followed with a solo home run to right field to make it 2-0.
Albuquerque added an insurance run in the eighth without getting the ball out of the infield.
Gordon beat out an infield hit to shortstop, advanced to second on De Jesus' sacrifice bunt and went to third on Velez's fly out to right field.
Trent Oeltjen then laid down a perfect bunt to score Gordon and make it 3-1.
The rest was all Ely, who was in sync with catcher A.J. Ellis all afternoon.
"It's huge. A.J. does so much work," Ely said. "He works so hard behind the plate and cares so much, you always want to throw to somebody like that. It's almost like extra motivation."
The Isotopes will continue their homestand Monday at 6:35 p.m. as the Colorado Springs Sky Sox come to town to start a three-game series.
Comments