With rumors swirling that Cats phenom pitcher Dan Straily would be called up to the big club at any moment, Tyson Ross got the call to replace Straily in the starting lineup for Thursday’s tilt against the Memphis Redbirds. With nearly the same type of clutch hitting as the night before, Ross’s fine performance and solid relief from James Timmons, Pedro Figueroa and Rich Thompson out of the bullpen, the Sacramento River Cats beat the visiting Redbirds 4-3 in front of 8,762 faithful in another exciting contest at Raley Field. Even though it was the late clutch hitting of the Cats that helped pull out the victory, Cats manager Darren Bush couldn’t let the performance of his starter go unno

With all the pitching changes on the Oakland A’s staff that have already occurred this season, you don’t really know who may be called up from one level for good or get a one-time start on the roster. So when Dan Straily took the mound on Thursday evening to throw his first pitches against hitters at the Triple-A level, even though he had an incredible strikeout-hit ratio, no one, not even Straily, knew quite what to expect. Straily admitted that maybe he had to shake off a little case of the jitters early in the game. “I was a little nervous there early on,” said Straily. “It was nice I was able to watch a couple of games, and settled in that way. But going out there and towing the rub

Coming into Thursday night’s contest at Raley Field, the Sacramento River Cats were on a roll. As winners of four of their last five, the team’s confidence was riding high, especially considering the pitching staff had only given up seven runs in the last five games. All that changed with the Tacoma Rainiers in town. They brought their ace, Anthony Vasquez, who had a streak of nine consecutive quality starts on the line dating back to last July, pitched a gem and kept Sacramento’s bats confused by changing speeds often. The pitching performance allowed the Rainiers to win the game 1-0 on a beautiful 79 degree evening in front of 4,304 fans. For the River Cats, the action got started in t

In the first two series of the year the Sacramento River Cats won both of them by winning three of the four games played in each. In the third series of the year, it was a close one, but the Cats beat the Reno Aces 2-1 in a classic pitchers’ duel on Monday night at Raley Field. The Aces were the first to scratch a run onto the huge Raley Field scoreboard when Ryan Wheeler ripped a 3-0 pitch from Cats starter Jarrod Parker that went screaming over the right field fence on a rope for a solo home run. Parker was solid though three innings of work. One-third of the way through the game, he had four strikeouts, three hits and a walk. In the bottom half of the third, Cats left fielder Grant G