Espy wants Stars in .600 club

Steve Addy

Tuesday, May 30, 2000 | 9:56 a.m.

Despite playing a rare stinker Monday night, if the Stars win tonight, they will be right where manager Duane Espy wanted them heading into June.

A 6-2 loss to the Fresno Grizzlies at Cashman Field left Las Vegas with a 29-20 record, but all will be forgiven and forgotten if the Stars win tonight's series closer, which would lift their winning percentage to .600 at the 50-game signpost.

Many big league managers use the 40-game mark to judge whether their team is talented enough to go the distance, but Espy prefers 50 as his first litmus test.

Though the Stars remain first in the PCL South Division, 1 1/2 games ahead of Sacramento, Espy is less concerned with the standings than his club's sustained success over the first two months of the season.

"I'm very big on breaking the season into pieces," Espy said. "If we win, we will be exactly where I wanted to be after 50 games. I would like to be at .600 anytime, but it has always been sort of my gimmick that you've got to win 30 games before you lose 21.

"We'll get there if we win (tonight). Whether that's where we need to be, I don't know, but it is definitely where I wanted us to be."

The Stars have gotten where they are with sturdy pitching and timely hitting. Will Cunnane gave them plenty of the former before an announced Memorial Day crowd of 2,757, but his bullpen pals and Las Vegas' hitters let him down badly.

In his strongest outing of the season, and his first since being sent back from the Padres last week, Cunnane permitted four hits and one run in six innings, tallying eight strikeouts and one walk. He left with a 2-1 lead, but his teammates threw it away with a dreadful eighth inning in which they helped Fresno score four times.

"It's too bad, because that is the best Will has pitched in terms of his stuff and his command of it," Espy said. "It's not very easy in this league to make a 2-1 lead stand up, but I wish we could've, because it was a nice performance by Will."

Cunnane, whom the Padres are converting to a full-time starter, was coming off a terrible stint in his previous appearance for the Stars. On May 17, three days before his recall to San Diego, he was hammered for four runs on three hits in two-thirds of an inning. This time, he made only one real mistake, a changeup that Jeff Ball hit for a solo homer in the fourth inning.

"I kept the ball down, I was hitting my spots and I pitched well inside," Cunnane said.

Even before Cunnane left, the Stars were hurting their own cause. They hit into double plays in four of the first five innings.

"That was about as bad as we can play. We haven't had a night like that in a long time," Espy said. "We had a chance to score runs, and we didn't. We had a chance to make routine plays and get out of situations, and we didn't. We had the chance to make pitches, and we didn't. I can't remember a night when all phases of it got shaky at the same time."

In the eighth, losing pitcher Brendan Sullivan (1-1) opened the floodgates by hitting the first two batters. He was replaced by Dan Serafini, then weak fielding took over.

A catchable fly to left was misplayed by John Roskos, loading the bases, and third baseman Greg LaRocca made a bad decision on a sharp grounder. Instead of throwing home to force out the lead runner, LaRocca tagged third and his throw to the plate was too late to prevent the tying run.

Fresno took the lead on Edwards Guzman's RBI double, and Raul Marvel added a two-run double.

* NOTES: Fresno starter Luis Estrella had a solid outing until leaving the game on a fluke play in the sixth inning. Backing up home plate after Joe Vitiello's single put Las Vegas ahead 2-1, Estrella twisted his left ankle by tripping on Vitiello's bat. ... Ben Davis pushed his hitting streak to 10 games on a fifth-inning double. He's hitting .380 (19-of-50) in his last 14 games. ... Cunnane was hit by a pitch for the first time in his career in the fifth inning. ... In the series finale tonight, the Stars' Brian Tollberg (3-0) opposes Fresno's Michael Riley (1-4).