Sacramento’s four homers drop Baby Cakes

METAIRIE- The Sacramento River Cats grabbed the lead after two pitches and never looked back, defeating the New Orleans Baby Cakes 7-2 on Monday night.

Mike Gerber laced the game’s first offering from Dustin Beggs into the right-center field gap, and Henry Ramos drilled the next pitch deep over the right field wall for a 2-0 advantage. Gerber also sparked a River Cats rally in the third with a leadoff single, coming around to score on a Francisco Pena sacrifice fly following a pair of walks.

New Orleans was limited to one hit through the first three innings but dented the scoreboard in the fourth when Magneuris Sierra led off with a single, went to third on Yadiel Rivera’s line drive off the right field fence, and scored on a tapper back to the mound by Isan Diaz.

Diaz also drove in the Baby Cakes’ other run with a single in the eighth to stretch his hitting streak to 12 games, the longest active streak in the PCL.

Sacramento quickly responded with back-to-back home runs in the fifth, as Chris Shaw’s two-run blasts preceded the first of two solo homers by Pena to stretch the lead to 6-1. The ‘Cakes threatened in the bottom half, loading the bases against Andrew Suarez with one out, but Sierra popped out and Rivera bounced out to end the inning.

Suarez (3-4) struck out four and gave up four hits in six innings to earn his first victory since April 20, snapping a three-game losing skid.

Beggs (4-3) had his second straight rocky start on the heels of a three-game winning streak, allowing six runs and seven hits in five innings. He has a 6.89 ERA in six starts at home this season, compared with a 2.66 mark on the road.

The Baby Cakes dropped three of four games in the series and finished a stretch of playing 28 out of 42 at home. They will embark on a seven-game road trip on Wednesday with the opener of a three-game series in El Paso.