Bears battle back to win

KEIZER, Ore. — For the Bears, Sunday was a win-question mark situation.

Yakima took another step toward the Northwest League first-half East Division title by outslugging Salem-Keizer 10-8, reducing their magic number for clinching the championship to four.

But while the Bears (19-11) won for the sixth time in seven games to maintain their five-game lead over Tri-City with eight remaining, the uncertainty surrounds ace left-hander Cody Wheeler. After leaving a game in the fifth inning a week earlier with what he described as fatigue in his pitching arm, which had undergone Tommy John surgery after the 2010 season, Wheeler went 1 2/3 innings Sunday and was replaced after yielding four hits and four runs with one walk and three strikeouts.

Information as to Wheeler’s condition was not immediately available Sunday night.

But Yakima, down 6-1 after three innings, got a run back in the fourth before exploding for eight in the sixth.

Joe Loftus homered for the second time in three nights to lead off the outburst in which the Bears sent 13 hitters to the plate and were aided by three S-K errors. Volcanoes manager Tom Trebelhorn was also ejected during the inning.

Yakima pounded out ?seven of its 17 hits during the rally including back-to-back doubles by Josh Parr and ?Shaun Cooper, the first of which scored two runs.

For the game, Parr and Steve Rodriguez had three hits apiece while Cooper, Loftus, Kevin Medrano, Jimmy Comerota and Yogey Perez-Ramos had two each.

Medrano, the league’s leading hitter, was hitting .343 after a 2 for 6 night.

Jose Jose, the third of six Bears pitchers, got the win after working two scoreless innings while R.J. Hively got his third save for a one-run ninth.

Yakima continues its eight-game trip tonight with the first of three in Boise.