Photo: Burlington’s Alvaro Rubalcaba (left) and Livan Soto celebrate after Sunday’s 3-2 win over the Beloit Snappers. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)
By John Bohnenkamp
Livan Soto stepped on first base, then threw his batting helmet across the infield to celebrate.
The Burlington Bees are trying to make the last week of the Class A Midwest League season fun.
They were able to do that in Sunday’s 3-2 win over the Beloit Snappers at Community Field, getting what they couldn’t get in Saturday’s one-run loss — the big hit.
Soto’s two-out single drove in Reyneldy Rosario with the winning run, with all of the on-base action coming after Beloit reliever Charlie Cerny (2-4) struck out Keinner Pina and got Ryan Vega on a grounder to second to open the inning.
Rosario, batting just .105 on the season, reached on an infield single and then stole second, eventually moving to third on a wild pitch. Alvaro Rubalcaba walked, and then Soto hit a line drive into right-center field for the game-winner.
Soto ran and did a leaping chest-bump with Rubalcaba as the Bees poured onto the field.
“It’s like we talked about last night — if you put the ball in play, good things happen,” Bees manager Jack Howell said. “Rosie puts the ball in play, beats out the infield single. Soto drives in the game winner.”
The Bees (64-68), pushing for a winning record or at least to get to .500 with eight games to play, had just five hits in the game, with two of those in the ninth. Beloit (53-77) had just three hits.
“Neither team is hitting very much,” Howell said. “You can see that in these first two games.”
The Bees took a 1-0 lead on a Vega run-scoring double in the second inning. Beloit took a 2-1 lead in the fourth on a sacrifice fly and a throwing error. Then Burlington tied the game in the sixth on a throwing error.
Bees reliever Ethan Clark (1-1) was the winning pitcher, getting four strikeouts in the final 1 2/3 innings.
NOTES: Bees outfielder Jordyn Adams, the first-round pick of the Los Angeles Angels in the 2018 Major League Baseball draft, was promoted to High-A Inland Empire for the final week of the season. Adams hit .250 with seven home runs and 31 runs batted in with the Bees. … Bees outfielder Nonie Williams extended his on-base streak to 15 games.
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