When play began on Friday evening in the Cal League South, only three games separated the second place Lake Elsinore Storm, third place Inland Empire 66ers, fourth place Rancho Cucamonga Quakes and fifth place High Desert Mavericks. Why all the interest in the second through fifth place teams? Simple – the Cal League South Wild Card berth is at stake.

With only 17 games remaining in the 2013 season, the Quakes and Storm squared off for the first of three games in a huge series at LoanMart Field. It became very clear very fast that this was going to be one of those games, with the Storm jumping out to an early 2-0 lead in the first inning. That lead was quickly erased, however, on a two-run home run by Quakes third baseman Scott Wingo, his third of the season, in the bottom of the inning.

The Storm appeared to break the game open in the second inning scoring four to take a 6-2 lead, but the Quakes fought back scoring two in the second and one in the third to get within one.

Top Dodger prospect Corey Seager showed further evidence of his baseball maturity by drawing three walks in Friday night’s game against the Lake Elsinore Storm. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

With the Quakes down 6-5 heading into the bottom of the 5th, Corey Seager drew a lead-off walk, advanced to second on a passed ball and scored on O’Koyea Dickson’s line drive single up the middle. Pratt Maynard then walked and Casio Grider dropped a perfect sacrifice bunt down moving Dickson to third and Maynard to second. Wingo then attempted a squeeze bunt with Dickson breaking for home but instead of getting the bunt down Wingo popped it up. Storm third baseman Duanel Jones charged hard but was unable to make the catch for what should have been an inning-ending double play. Instead, the run scored and Wingo was generously credited with a bunt single, bringing Noel Cuevas to the plate still with only one out. Cuevas promptly laced a double into the left field gap scoring both Maynard and Wingo. Cuevas stole third base and scored on a Darnell Sweeney single. When the dust had settled, the Quakes had plated five runs to take a 10-6 lead.

The Quakes added two more in the 7th inning on a two-run Scott Schebler home run, his 26th of the season and most in the Cal League, to give the Quakes a commanding 12-6 lead.

Scott Schebler hit his Cal League-leading 26th home run on Friday night.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

The Storm added one more in the 8th but it was matched by another Quakes run in the bottom of the inning on a scoring ground out by Casio Grider making it 13-7.

Outfielder-turned-pitcher Blake Smith pitched a scoreless 9th to preserve the win for Raydel Sanchez, who came on in relief of starter Gustavo Gomez in the 4th inning and pitched three scoreless innings allowing only one hit and one walk while striking out two.

The Quakes collected a total of 15 hits on the night and every Quakes player had at least one hit.

As for the Cal League South standings, the Quakes now trail the Storm by a game and a half and the 66ers by one game. The win gave the Quakes a 13-11 season record over the Storm and a win over the next two days would give them the advantage in the event of a tie for the final Wild Card berth. That being said, the Quakes still have 16 games to play including two more with the Storm and eight with the first half Cal League South champion Lancaster JetHawks who, by the way, are in first place in the second half as well – and by a wide margin.