51s use long ball to end 7-game skid

Nick Christensen

Thursday, May 27, 2004 | 9:05 a.m.

All season, the Las Vegas 51s have struggled to reach .500.

After improving their record to 5-6, the 51s lost two in a row. They worked back up to 8-9, then lost six of their next seven. Last week, they worked back up to 19-20 -- and went on another seven-game losing streak before exploding offensively Wednesday night in a 17-6 win at Colorado Springs, Colo.

The 51s have lost the first two games of their four-game series up the road in Colorado Springs.

Wednesday night's win, supported by Edwin Jackson's start in which he allowed six hits and three runs in six innings, was highlighted by six 51s home runs -- two by Chin-Feng Chen, two by Ricky Bell, and one each by Sergio Garcia and Jayson Werth.

But the winning did nothing to fix the underlying problem for the 51s -- a lineup riddled with injuries.

"It's just bad karma, that's about all I can say," 51s manager Terry Kennedy said of the team's just-overcome seven-game losing streak.

The bad karma is manifesting itself in the form of freak injuries and unusual happenings.

With outfielder John Barnes and infielder Eric Riggs still healing from injuries they sustained in April, the already depleted 51s got even weaker over the course of the past week.

First, outfielder Cody Ross, who was acquired from Detroit for reliever Steve Colyer in the last weekend of spring training, broke his hand in Albuquerque. According to Kennedy, Ross, a native of Carlsbad, N.M., had family visiting him on the road trip, and one of his family members accidentally closed a car door on Ross' hand.

Ross was hitting .323 over the past three series before he broke his hand on the car door.

After Ross' injury, the pitching staff was dealt a setback when reliever Doug Nickle retired. Nickle, 29, signed as a free agent with the Dodgers in the offseason after spending the last three seasons going between Triple-A and the majors. Nickle was 2-2 with a 4.73 ERA, a far cry from his career minor league average of 2.92.

Also in Albuquerque, utilityman Nick Theodorou suffered a concussion in a rundown play, although symptoms did not surface until Wednesday night.

The trip to Colorado Springs brought no more good news for the team. Infielder Jose Flores, who was hitting .444 since May 11, fell to a groin injury in Monday's 10-8 loss to the Sky Sox, and Kennedy expects that he'll go on the disabled list.

Capping off the comedy of errors for Las Vegas, outfielder Jayson Werth, on a major league rehab assignment from the Dodgers, suffered an allergic reaction Wednesday night an "puffed up like a blowfish," Kennedy said.

"Nothing surprises me anymore," he said. "Whenever I see (trainer) Jason Mahnke, I call him Dr. Doom; when he comes to me I know something's wrong."

The 51s did get some help from Double-A Jacksonville, including reliever Franquelis Osoria and infielder Sergio Garcia.

Garcia was hitting .286 for the Suns, and Osoria was 1-2 with a 4.70 ERA.

"It's just one thing after another, we've got six starters out because of injury. That's just the way it goes, we've had bad breaks ... literally."