Lake Elsinore Storm vs. Inland Empire 66ers California League Baseball

By David A. Willauer-Contributing Writer-Pete Lehr Field at Storm Stadium-Lake Elsinore, CA-6-28-22-The Lake Elsinore Storm (Lower A Level of the San Diego Padres) continue to ride a 3 game winning streak as they defeated the Inland Empire 66ers (Anaheim Angels) affiliate by a 5-3 score.

The Storm scored 4 runs in the bottom of the first on 5 straight hits as they took a 4-0 lead and scored 1 run in the 6th on Juan Zabala's rbi single.

Manuel Castro was the winning pitcher for the Storm as his record goes to 2-0 as he pitched 5.2 innings gave up 2 hits 2 runs 2 earned 3 walks and struck out 12 66ers batters.

Manual Castro on the mound performance: "I felt great today on focusing on throwing strikes as some of my pitches were in and out. " "From the beginning of todays game, I know my team and the things came out the way we wanted it too."

"Today my change up was the most important pitch that I used for strikeouts, but all pitches worked well for me." "On my next start, I need to focus on getting batters out by continuing to throw strikes."'

Lake Elsinore Storm Manager Eric Junge: "It's nice to get an early lead as our guys swung the bats well, we hit the ball well all night along with our pitching was good enough to hold their batters." " It was a complete ballgame tonight as starter Manuel Castro did well on the mound in his second time pitching this year." "He pitched well the 4 inning in his previous start ran into a little bit of trouble but this time came out with a fastball command change along with the breaking ball for strikeouts, in the 4th and 5th inning he had them as all of his pitches worked well."

"When Inland Empire scored their 2 runs in the sixth and 1 in the seventh I went to my relief pitching Yerry Landenas who does well in the late innings and struck out the last two batters," Inland Empire has some dangerous hitters and great players I would rather face the 6 through 9 batters but the top of their lineups from 1 to 3 they are they dangerous hitters."

The 66ers registered their only runs of the game as they scored 2 in the sixth on a Edgar Quero 2 run homer along with 1 in the 7th.

Bodi Rascone will start for the Storm at 43-27 on 6-29-22. Game Time 6 PM

For the time since 2019 the Storm have clinched the first half of the California League Southern Division title and ride a 3 game winning streak