EL PASO – After winning the first three games of their series against the Reno Aces, the Chihuahuas have now dropped two straight after an 8-2 loss Saturday night.
The home team got on the board first on Nick Solak’s RBI single, before Reno plated two runs in the fifth. The Diamondbacks affiliate’s coup de grâce came with a six-run sixth inning when they sent 10 batters to the plate.
Marco Gonzalez looked strong in his return Saturday. (Photo: Jorge Salgado)
Well before Reno put the game out of reach, Marco Gonzalez came off a nine-day stay on the IL and made it through a pair of innings, allowing only a pair of hits with two strikeouts. The 34-year-old left-hander, a veteran of 10 major league seasons, missed all of 2025 while recovering from flexor tendon surgery in September of 2024.
In three starts with the Chihuahuas before hitting the shelf, he gave up 12 earned runs in 13.2 innings. Today, he mixed in a variety of cutters and changeups with the occasional four-seam fastball to keep Aces hitters off balance.
“I thought he looked fresh,” said Chihuahuas manager Pete Zamora. “Coming out of spring training, his arm looked a little dead. He still loves to compete, but didn’t have his crisp stuff in some of his earlier outings; he did today.
“Maybe the added rest helped him, and I think that was more of the true Marco we saw tonight.”
El Paso tacked on a run in the seventh when Jase Bowen hit his team-leading seventh home run. He is now fourth in the Pacific Coast League. Bowen has been one of the Padres’ more interesting minor league free agent signings. After a big spring training, when he was one of the last players sent to Triple-A, he has been one of the more dynamic players in the Pacific Coast League.
Jase Bowen has put up impressive numbers in the PCL early in 2026. (Photo: Jorge Salgado)
The 25-year-old’s .630 slugging percentage and 16 extra-base hits both rank second in the league, and he’s third in total bases with 58.
His only real negative is a 28% strikeout rate, which, as Bowen said in an interview with us today, is one of his main priorities.
In addition to his offensive fireworks, he made a spectacular diving play in center to put a merciful end to the sixth inning.
“I hear a lot of positive talk with him and our hitting coach Ben Rosenthal,” Zamora said. “It’s the philosophy of moving from one at-bat to the next and how to learn from an at-bat that didn’t go his way and how not to let it affect his next at-bat.
“Tonight, he came back from a strikeout to crush a ball to center. He stayed in the game. When he is at the plate or in the field, he is the type of guy you want to stand up and watch.”
Bowen, who was an 11th-round selection of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2019, had a strong year in Triple-A Indianapolis with an .870 OPS, but San Diego believes that the 25-year-old has a chance for more.
“I think with Jase, it’s a progression, learning how to trust the processes and routines, and those are the terms that he is using. This may be a slow cook; we should not do it quickly if we want to do it right.
“We have to be able to co-exist with failure; we don’t have to like it or have it, but you have to learn how to co-exist with it and more around it, or you will drive yourself insane.”
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With the game out of reach, righty Misael Tamarez threw two scoreless innings to bounce back from three straight outings in which he’d allowed a run. The hard-throwing righty dialed his four-seam fastball up to 100 mph, and his sinker sat at 97. The Astros released the 26-year-old midseason last year, and the Padres quickly jumped in to sign him. After years of struggling with command, he issued only four free passes in 31.2 innings in his new organization. So far this year, he’s seen some regression, issuing six walks in 13.1 innings, but he’s holding opponents to a .167 average in the PCL.
