Heat pitchers blaze through Scorpions

Hitting has never been the problem for the Blythe Heat in this month's Arizona Winter League, and on Sunday Blythe showed what it can do with a couple good pitching performances as well.

Aside from Matt Voorhies' home run, the Yuma Scorpions never reached third base against Blythe's Tom Maletta and Mike Reeves in a 14-1 blowout at Desert Sun Stadium.

Yuma has lost its last four games and its second straight to the Heat.

"We got beat 22-4 last night, so had a meeting after the game and today we came out with more passion and aggression," Heat manager Jeffrey Leonard said. "Yuma just happened to be the team that was in the way."

Maletta allowed four hits in his five innings, including the solo blast from Voohies out to left field, but never faced more than five batters in an inning. Reeves entered the game with a 12-1 lead and continued to keep Scorpions hitters off balanced, giving up just three hits and no walks.

"He doesn't have the biggest velocity," Leonard said of Maletta. "He just gets the stops with change-ups, slow curves and sinkers. He just throws that kind of speed that's right under good hitting speed and gets guys out front. And Reeves, he's one of the better pitchers here."

Yuma (4-8) fell behind early on as Blythe (4-8) knocked in seven runs in the first inning. D.J. Dixon's three-RBI bullet to center field was his only hit of the game, but it opened up the floodgates. Grant Berkovitz scored Dixon with three-RBI double and Chris Akins followed with a two-RBI single.

"We have probably one of, if not the best, hitting teams here," Leonard said. "We've won four of our last six, so we will be in this at the end."

Akins finished 3-for-5 with a home run in the sixth inning off Neil Hayes, and Blythe's Steve Alexander crushed a two-run blast off of Yuma's newest pitcher, Denny Bair, in the fifth inning.