Inside the Shell -- Nuts bestow gift of life to Ports

Stockton 7, Modesto 6. Game Two of North Division mini-series.

GAME IN A GRAF – The Nuts led 6-2 in the fifth with a strong Esmil Rogers on the mound, but let the Ports back tie the game with poor infield execution in a three-run sixth inning, then lost on Chris Carter’s solo homer in the seventh. A series of questionable calls from the usual umpiring suspects _ including the creatively horrible Masaki Nonaka _ helped to seal Modesto’s fate, but in the end the Nuts cost themselves this one. For a complete recap of the meltdown, see the game story at www.modbee.com/sports.

WILD FINISH REVISITED – All sides agrees after the fact that the wild final moments of Modesto’s win on Wednesday was not a matter of one bad play, but three.

To reset, Daniel Mayora was at second base and Lino Garcia at first with one out in a 5-5 tie. On a 1-2 pitch Nick Haley hit a sharp two-hopper to shortstop Josh Horton, whose quick shovel to Frank Martinez forced Garcia.

But Martinez was nonchalant about his throw to first baseman Matt Spencer, and the lob pulled Spencer off the base. A good throw would have completed the double play. Instead, that was the first mistake.

Spencer took a quick look toward third, where Mayora was standing no more than five feet off the base. Still, something in Spencer’s head told him to throw the ball, which was mistake No. 2.

Mistake No. 3 was the throw itself, which sailed about 10 feet down the line. Mayora’s retreat to the base blocked the path of third baseman Chris Carter.

It was the third strange ending to a Modesto-Stockton game in the last two years. In 2007, the Nuts won a game when Ports’ pitcher Leonard Landeros (a former Modesto A’s player) threw a wild pitch on an intentional walk with a runner at third base. It would be the final pitch thrown in the seven-year professional career of Landeros, who signed with Oakland in 2001 out of the College of the Sequoias.

And earlier this season, the Nuts also won in a slightly less weird manner, getting a walk-off wild pitch to defeat Stockton.

FRIDAY: Aneury Rodriguez (9-10, 3.74) will start for Modesto against Ports’ righty Graham Godfrey (5-8, 5.10.)