Baseball: Royals rallies fall short; Cubs prevail

• Iowa 7, Omaha Royals 6

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Round 2 of Omaha's showdown series went to Iowa on Thursday.

The latest round of Omaha slugger Scott Thorman vs. Iowa reliever Jeff Stevens went to Stevens — just barely.

One night after Thorman's two-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning against Stevens that gave Omaha a 2-0 victory, Stevens came on in relief to face Thorman in the bottom of the ninth with two runners on base and the Cubs clinging to a 7-5 lead.

Thorman produced an RBI single, but Stevens got the final two outs for his sixth save as the 7-6 win moved the Cubs 212 games ahead of Omaha in the Pacific Coast League's American Conference North. Meanwhile, before a Rosenblatt Stadium crowd of 8,884 — including a season-high walk-up of almost 2,000 — Omaha dropped into third place in the division behind Memphis, which beat Round Rock 1-0 to stay 11 2 games behind the Cubs.

Omaha trailed 7-1 after Jason Dubois' fifth-inning grand slam, but brought the tying and go-ahead run to the plate during a three-run sixth, got the tying run up again in the seventh and brought the winning run to the plate in the ninth.

Stevens came on after Justin Berg, just down from the majors, allowed three of the four batters he faced to reach base. Mike Moustakas' double made it 7-4, and Iowa manager Ryne Sandberg brought Stevens on to face Thorman.

“He's a strike-thrower who makes teams earn what they get,” Sandberg said. “It was another chance to go head-to-head against him. No second thoughts at all.”

Stevens fell behind three balls, no strikes.

“I definitely knew Thorman was up,” Stevens said. “I had in my mind first-pitch breaking ball for a strike, but it was a ball. After that I thought I'd throw it for a strike again and missed. And at that point I was just going to throw fastball and if he hit it, he hit it.

“I couldn't believe he swung at the 3-0 pitch, but he knew a fastball was coming and he can hit a fastball.”

After Thorman's single made it 7-6, Stevens walked Lucas May to load the bases, but then got Kurt Mertins to foul out and struck out Jordan Parraz.

“It looked like he stepped it up a notch and threw some pretty good fastballs to Parraz,” Sandberg said. “That last one had some hair on it. I think he felt the situation and rose to the occasion.”

Thorman and Stevens have plenty of experience against one another — both coming up through the minors and in international league play, Stevens with Team USA and Thorman with Canada.

“It seems like he always hits balls well against me,” Stevens said. “You can't come into a situation like that wondering if he's going to hit another one. You've got to come in and make pitches to the best of your ability. Once it leaves your hand, that's all you can do.”

Moustakas hit a two-run homer in the sixth to jump-start Omaha's comeback.

“We kept battling,” Omaha manager Mike Jirschele said. “We were one hit away from winning that game — more than once.”

Omaha has pitched carefully the first two games of the series against left-handed hitters Brad Snyder and Bryan LaHair — .300 hitters with a combined 40 homers — and elected to walk Snyder to load the bases and set up a righty-against-righty matchup with Dubois against Matt Herges (7-4). But Dubois lined a ball just over a leaping Parraz at the right field wall to make it 7-1.

“It didn't work out, but I'm going to take my chances with a right-hander hitting .248 against a righty rather than a lefty hitting the ball really well — especially against us — in that situation,” Jirschele said.

Eventually, Dubois' 13th homer was enough.

“It's nice to see him connect on a ball, and he doesn't hit too many to the opposite field,” Sandberg said. “He put a good swing on it. That seemed to ease any tension there might have been. We could relax a little bit ... at least until the ninth.”

• NOTES: After Brian Bannister makes his second injury rehabilitation start Friday, another member of Kansas City's starting rotation — Luke Hochevar — will make a rehab start for Omaha on Saturday. Bannister is scheduled to pitch no more than three innings, Hochevar two innings or 35 pitches. ... The Royals will wear predominantly pink 1970s Houston Astros-style jerseys Friday on Susan G. Komen for the Cure Night. Proceeds from a silent auction of those jerseys will be given to the cause to defeat breast cancer. ... The game was delayed briefly in the bottom of the eighth inning as a large praying mantis landed on the pitching mound. Iowa pitching coach Mike Mason scooped it up by using two paper cups.

Contact the writer:

444-1027, rob.white@owh.com

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