Jerry Sands called it “just one of those nights.” And he’s right if you consider things that has only happened five times in the 109-year history of the Pacific Coast League “one of those nights.”
Sands, a Smithfield-Selma High School graduate who spent part of the 2011 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, hit two grand slams in a game Sunday night for the Albuquerque Isotopes and drove in 10 runs in the Isotopes’ doubleheader sweep of Nashville.
“It was just one of those nights,” Sands said by phone Monday. “The first game, I had a pretty good game with a two-run double to put us ahead in the eighth. The second game, I had three chances with the bases loaded, less than two outs so I was just trying to elevate the ball, get a sacrifice fly and score at least a run.
“I got it in the air and it got out.”
Sands hit a 1-0 first-inning pitch over the right-field fence in his first at bat of the second game. He came up with the bases loaded again in the second, but grounded out.
Two innings later, he hit another 1-0 fastball out – this one to left field, driving in his seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th runs of the night.
“It’s pretty cool to be one of five guys to do it,” Sands said of hitting two slams. “A.J. Pierzynski was one of the guys to do it, so it’s great to do something a player like that has done.”
Pierzynski his his two slams for Salt Lake City in 2000, following Peter Schnieder (1923) and Babe Pinelli (1929). Gregorio Petit hit two slams just two years ago for Oklahoma City.
The eight RBIs in the second game tied a Triple-A record as well.
Sands is hitting .368 in his last 10 games, upping his season average to .274. He was named the PCL player of the week for July 23-29, a span where he hit .375.
