Stars suffer 4th straight defeat

Friday, Aug. 1, 1997 | 10:18 a.m.

Returning home from a disastrous road trip during which the starting pitching was outstanding but the bullpen couldn't hold a lead, the Las Vegas Stars were hoping to turn things around with a 12-game homestand at Cashman Field.

They managed to do that, but the result was the same -- a loss.

Instead of the bullpen struggling, Stars starting pitcher Heath Murray gave up five runs in the fourth inning Thursday night and reliever Todd Schmitt balked in what proved to be the decisive run in the seventh inning as the Edmonton Trappers held off the Stars 6-5.

"Murray gets in all kind of trouble in his fourth inning of work and gives up five runs ... you've just got to have some damage control in there somewhere," Stars manager Jerry Royster said. "Todd Schmitt gets in trouble and works his way out of it with one run and that ends up being the difference in the game.

"We battled and gave ourselves a chance, got all the runs we should have gotten and we didn't leave any freebies out there."

The loss was the fourth in a row for the Stars, who fell to 17-24 in the second half (42-70 overall) and dropped 10 1/2 games behind Phoenix in the Southern Division of the Pacific Coast League with 31 games remaining.

Although it will go down in the books as yet another loss, Royster was encouraged by his team's performance on both offense and defense. Las Vegas squandered no legitimate scoring opportunities and shortstop Jorge Velandia turned in a superb defensive performance with four spectacular plays in the field.

"He had a heck of a game today," Royster said of Velandia. "That's one of those games that I've been telling him about that makes the difference in him being a major leaguer as opposed to the four-hit game."

In addition to his work with the glove, Velandia had a good night at the plate, moving a runner over on a hit-and-run in the third inning, executing a textbook sacrifice bunt in the fifth and doubling to left-center in the seventh.

"You have to go out there and execute and he executed a hit-and-run that got us a run, he executed a bunt that got us two and then he doubled in the gap for a hit," Royster said. "He played excellent defense, but that's his job -- his job is to set up runs and he did that on offense and played defense to the hilt.

"He's a defensive shortstop (who) can come up with some big plays every now and then on offense -- and he did. His two biggest plays were the ones that he didn't even get a hit on."

Velandia aided the Stars' two-run fifth inning with his sacrifice bunt. Dave Hajek opened the inning with a single and Eric Helfand doubled to left-center to cut the deficit to 5-1. Chad Tredaway followed with an infield single and Velandia moved the runners to second and third with his bunt. With two outs, Edmonton third baseman Jason Wood misplayed Charles Poe's grounder into an error for the Stars' second run.

The Trappers pushed their lead to 6-2 in the seventh against Schmitt. Wood and Steve Cox opened the inning with singles and both advanced a base on a passed ball. With Brian Lesher at the plate, Schmitt was called for a balk that forced in Wood.

Schmitt settled down after walking Lesher and got the next hitter to ground to short. After intentionally walking Webster Garrison, Schmitt induced A.J. Hinch to ground into an inning-ending double play.

Las Vegas closed to 6-4 in the bottom half of the seventh on a single by Tredaway, a double by Velandia, an RBI single by Stoney Briggs and Poe's run-scoring fielder's choice.