Quakes’ second rally comes up short

It was ugly, sloppy, and another loss for the Quakes.

Lancaster held on for an 8-7, 10-inning victory in the teams’ final meeting of 2009 on Thursday. The Quakes had tied the score 5-5 on Andrew Romine’s RBI single with two outs in the ninth, then came up a run short in the 10th after Koby Clemens hit a three-run homer in the top half of the inning.

Quakes manager Keith Johnson has been stressing that a couple of little mistakes in each game have been adding up to losses.

This game had the big mistakes, and the little mistakes.

It was a big mistake at the end, when Carlos Colmenares, representing the tying run, was picked off first base by catcher Koby Clemens to end the game after he strayed too far when the ball got away from Clemens.

Quakes second baseman Hector Estrella made two errors, including one in the seventh that led to the tying and go-ahead runs scoring.

The Quakes had two runners thrown out at the plate on singles (Efren Navarro in the second and P.J. Phillips in the sixth), although those appeared to have Johnson (coaching third) as much to blame as anybody.

Another mistake was minor and not so costly, but it could’ve been. When Julio Perez led off the 10th with a single and the Quakes trailing 8-5, Lancaster chose not to hold Perez on first base since his run was meaningless. It would’ve made sense for Perez to take second base that was being given to him but he instead stayed on first and was nearly thrown out at third on Navarro’s single.

The Quakes and Johnson did some good things, too, but it proved too much to overcome the miscues.