Fresno Grizzlies finish off El Paso, reach PCL title series

The Fresno Grizzlies entered Saturday hungry for a win and fulfilled their cravings with a 7-4 victory in Game 4 of their Pacific Conference series, eliminating El Paso and advancing to their club’s Pacific Coast League Championship series.

It is the first postseason series victory in for the Grizzlies, who will meet American Conference champ Round Rock in the PCL title series that begins Tuesday in Texas. The 1998 Fresno team that reached the playoffs lost its Pacific Conference series in five games to Triple-A Calgary.

“It’s just a good feeling, just to get this far and get to the championships round,” said Fresno manager Tony DeFrancesco, who pointed to starting pitcher Brett Oberholtzer’s dominant performance on the mound as a big difference in the game.

Oberholtzer retired his first 11 batters before giving up a hit, and 17 of 19 before allowing a run.

“My goal was to win and compete for my team, so hopefully we could celebrate after the game – and we did for sure,” said Oberholtzer, adding that Grizzlies showered the visiting locker room at Southwest University Park with champagne and beer.

The Grizzlies strung together three straight hits to start the second inning – two singles and a bunt hit – and load the bases. Andrew Aplin and Tyler Heineman followed with consecutive RBI groundouts for an early 2-0 lead.

Tyler White made it 3-0 with a solo homer in the third. With the bases loaded in the fourth, Tony Kemp smoked a line-drive double to right to push the Grizzlies’ lead to 5-0.

“We definitely didn’t want to have to play (a Game 5 Sunday), that’s for sure,” said Grizzlies outfielder Alex Presley, who was 2 for 4 with a run scored. “We wanted to close it out, and we did.”

Oberholtzer gave up a solo homer to Hunter Renfroe in the bottom of the sixth. The lefty lasted 6 2/3 innings, allowing one earned run on five hits, to go with four strikeouts and no walks.

Jordan Jankowski relieved him with two outs and runners on the corners in the seventh, and escaped the jam with a five-pitch swinging strikeout by Jason Hagerty.

Jankowski returned in the eighth and gave up back-to-back singles before Renfroe connected for his second homer of the game – a three-run shot that sliced El Paso’s six-run deficit in half. Jankowski regrouped after the home run, retiring the next three batters.

The Grizzlies added two runs in the top of the eighth, via a Matt Duffy sacrifice fly and a throwing error at home plate.

James Hoyt retired the side in order in the ninth for his second save of the playoffs, clinching the postseason series victory with a swinging strikeout.

It’s the second time the Grizzlies have celebrated on the road this season – last month they were in Iowa when they clinched the division.

DeFrancesco told his players that trend will change next week.

“Anything can happen from here,” DeFrancesco said. “I told these guys, ‘The next time we celebrate, We'll celebrate at our clubhouse.’ ”

On the other side of the PCL playoffs, Round Rock beat Oklahoma City 2-1 on Friday night to sweep the American Conference series 3-0. The Express are managed by Fresno native Jason Wood.

The best-of-five PCL championship series will have its first two games in Round Rock on Tuesday and Wednesday with the remaining three games played at Fresno, as necessary.

This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 7:50 PM with the headline "Fresno Grizzlies finish off El Paso, reach PCL title series."