SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
The clock is winding down on the Albuquerque Isotopes regular season in the ancient Pacific Coast Baseball League.
The long-running Triple A league that first played way back in 1903 has the Topes in fifth place in the 10-team league with a 31-29 overall record and will feature them in three straight home games with giveaway days.
Friday is Fireworks and Little League Days as preliminaries to the 6:45 night game against Reno, which is the Arizona Diamondback minor league team that has won back-to-back games versus Albuquerque, 6-5 and 4-3, and is in fourth place at 34-26 and two games behind frontrunning Round Rock (35-24), the Texas Rangers franchise.
Saturday, the home club will provide prize giveaway packages to the first 3,000 fans at the 1:05 start, and on Sunday, also in a 12:05 first pitch, it will be doggie gifts to the first 2,000 fans who must be in the ballpark with their pet dogs.
This is the second to last homestand for the Isotopes, and there are 11 regular-season games remaining until the playoffs.
The Topes had fallen to the basement, eight games behind during the first half of the campaign, then vaulted to second place four games behind the leader, and now sit in the middle of the pack tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Oklahoma City.
Making up the rest of the standings is Tacoma (Washington) of the Seattle Mariners; Oklahoma City of the Los Angeles Dodgers; Sacramento of the San Francisco Giants; Salt Lake City (Utah) of the Los Angeles Angels; and Sugar Land (Texas) of the Houston Astros.
A game each in back of first place Round Rock are Las Vegas and Tacoma, then comes Reno, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Sugar Land.
