Gold Sox trounce Bears to end losing skid

Mired in the bottom two places in the Great West League, both the Marysville Gold Sox and Yuba City Bears entered the opener of their three-game series on Thursday night in search of a much-needed win.

Thanks to newcomer Tom Fuller, the Gold Sox got just that.

Fuller, a catcher from Yale University, finished 4 for 5 with a double and three RBI in his first start of the summer, and Marysville pounded out 14 hits as a team to earn an 8-3 victory over rival Yuba City at Colusa Casino Stadium.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Gold Sox, who improved to 4-11 on the summer. It was the second straight loss for the Bears, who fell to 5-11.

Logan Wurm knocked in a run with a groundout in the bottom of the third inning to give Yuba City a 1-0 lead and Marysville tied it up when Grant Horwitz hit into a 6-4-3 double play with the bases loaded in the fourth.

The Gold Sox took their first lead of the game on an RBI double by Justin Cooney-Sylk in the fifth and opened up a 4-1 advantage in the sixth when Fuller hit an RBI double and later scored on an error.

Marysville continued to add on to its lead by scoring two times in the seventh. Horwitz drove in the first run on a sacrifice fly and Fuller added the other on an RBI single to

the seventh. The team said both players’ status was day to day.

Nick Hundley, who replaced Posey at catcher, had a pinch-hit home run to ignite a five-run eighth. Pitcher Ty Blach, in a rare pinch-hitting appearance, also had an RBI single. Brandon Crawford then drove a 2-2 offering from Jake McGee into the leftfield bleachers for a threerun homer that pulled the Giants, who trailed 9-1 earlier, within a run.

Austin Slater singled off closer Greg Holland to lead off the ninth for his fourth hit of the game. Holland fanned Hundley but Denard Span singled and Gorkys Hernandez delivered a game-tying sacrifice fly, marking the first blown save of the season for Holland (1-0). He had converted a franchise-record 23 in a row to start the year.

With Giants position players depleted, Jeff Samardzija became the second Giants pitcher to be used as a pinch-hitter. While he was up, Span broke for the plate when a pitch trickled out of the glove of catcher Tom Murphy. Murphy quickly grabbed it and flipped the ball to Holland covering home, and the sliding Span was tagged out in a bangbang play that survived replay review.

Giants starter Matt Moore went three innings and allowed eight runs on 11 hits.