Quakes’ left-hander Alexander Torres, 10-3 with the second-best ERA in the league at 2.74, was promoted to Double-A Arkansas after Thursday’s extra-inning victory over Modesto. He was promoted after ex-Quake Michael Anton was injured with Arkansas.

Joining Torres at Arkansas will be catcher Brian Walker, who had three hits and two RBIs in Thursday’s win.

Taking Torres’ spot in the rotation and expected to make his Quakes debut on Sunday at San Jose, is 6-foot-2 left-hander Manuel Flores who was 7-4 with 3.59 ERA at low Single-A Cedar Rapids, including an eight-inning, one-run performance against South Bend on Sunday. He’s won three straight starts.

The moves leave the Quakes at 23 players, two short of the roster limit.

Thursday was only my third day back after a two-week vacation, and the Quakes and 66ers were both involved in a couple of thrilling games.

QUAKES 7, MODESTO 6 (11 innings)

If the Quakes end up making the playoffs at the end of the season, they could very well point to Thursday’s victory in which they came back from a 6-0 deficit as the win that sent them on their way.

With the score tied 6-6, Brian Walker led off the 11th with his third hit of the game, a double to left. Alberto Rosario pinch-ran for him, but Andrew Romine’s bunt attempt was popped up for the first out. But Hector Estrella followed with a single to center, scoring Rosario and sending the rest of the Quakes streaming out of the dugout in celebration.

The Quakes had been stymied by Modesto starter Christian Friedrich, the Rockies’ first-round draft pick last year who struck out 11 in six innings.

Trailing 6-0, Walker got the Quakes’ scoring started by homering off of Friedrich leading off the sixth and Jay Brossman’s homer in the seventh made it 6-2.

They tied it in the eighth against a trio of Nuts relievers. Estrella had an RBI double and Efren Navarro an RBI single to make it 6-4, and the inning was helped by a throwing error by reliever Ching-Lung Lo that made the last two runs in the inning unearned. Clay Fuller was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to make it 6-5. The Quakes then tried a suicide squeeze with one out and the bases loaded. Jeremy Moore appeared to beat the throw home on Carlos Colmenares’ bunt, but was ruled out.

Walker followed by drawing a walk, tying the score. Romine, the 10th batter to hit in the inning, grounded out leaving the score tied.

Nearly lost in the rally was the job done by the Quakes’ bullpen. The quintet of Ysmael Carmona, Kevin Nabors, Taylor Wilding, Michael Kohn and Eddie McKiernan (3-4) combined to pitch six shutout innings in relief of Ryan Brasier, allowing four hits and two walks while striking out seven.

The 11-inning game tied the longest of the year for the Quakes. They defeated High Desert 4-3 in 11 innings on May 14. The winning pitcher in both games? McKiernan.

The victory also gave the Quakes a series win, their first series win in five tries against the North Division this season.

LAKE ELSINORE 5, 66ERS 4

James Darnell singled off Marcel Prado to score Brad Chalk with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift Lake Elsinore to the come-from-behind victory.

The Sixers had led early 4-1 on Jaime Ortiz’s three-run double in the third inning, but the Storm tied it with Sawyer Carroll’s three-run homer in the fifth and the game remained tied until the bottom of the ninth. Trayvon Robinson had three hits and Ortiz had two to lead the Sixers’ attack.

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.

The Sixers held on for dear life on Tuesday night as James Darnell’s potential game-tying home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth was caught on the warning track, preserving the Sixers’ 7-4 victory over host Lake Elsinore.

Steven Johnson (7-4) got the win by allowing two runs in five innings. Miguel Sanfler allowed two runs in the eighth, but Zach Schreiber got the final six outs for his first save.

Elian Herrera was 3-for-5 with two runs, a home run and two RBIs for the Sixers. Christian Lara was 2-for-4 with two RBIs for the Sixers.

The Quakes dropped a 7-3 decision to Lancaster at the Epicenter as a close game was broken open in the top of the seventh, when the JetHawks scored three times to extend their lead to 6-2. T.J. Steele was 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBIs for the JetHawks. Jeremy Moore had two hits and two RBIs for the Quakes.

It was a bizarre game, and in retrospect, maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Quakes came back to beat the Mavericks 6-4 before a crowd of 7,010 at the Epicenter before the holiday fireworks show.

Although they had no hits through six innings, the Quakes trailed just 3-2 after scoring single runs in the fourth and fifth on a walk, bunt and an error.

They got two hits in the seventh, but were retired in order. After P.J. Phillips singled, Julio Perez’s single hit Phillips, as Phillips was out on the play. Perez was picked off. The Mavericks added a run in the top of the eighth, before Michael Kohn, making his Quakes debut, came in to retire Joe Dunigan on a foul pop to end the inning.

Kohn (1-0) ended up being the winning pitcher, because the Quakes rallied for four runs in the bottom of the eighth, on singles by Clay Fuller and Andrew Romine, a botched pickoff attempt for an error by catcher Travis Scott, and a two-run single by Jeremy Moore that tied the game. Moore went to second on the throw home, then when he was sacrificed to third by Carlos Colmenares (a late replacement for an ill Efren Navarro), he scored as reliever Steve Richard’s throw got away. Colmenares went to third on Jay Brossman’s single, and scored on a wild pitch for a 6-4 lead.

Kohn, who was 4-1 with 6 saves, a 2.19 ERA and an impressive 60 strikeouts in 37 innings with low Single-A Cedar Rapids before joining the Quakes Friday, was impressive in striking out two in the ninth to preserve the win.

But along the way, probably unfamiliar to many fans in attendance, Mavericks outfielder Jamie McOwen extended his California League record hitting streak to 40 games.

McOwen was 0-for-3 entering the ninth after barely getting thrown out on a bunt attempt in the fifth and flying out to the warning track in center in the eighth, was down 0-2 and fouled off a pitch, before ripping a single up the middle to extend the hitting streak. He has the second-longest hitting streak in the last 20 years (the longest is 43 games).