SOUTH JORDAN, UT. - Three two-run homers, courtesy of Ryan Nicholson, Logan Porter, and Ben Gobbel, powered the Salt Lake Bees to a 9-1 Fourth of July win over the Las Vegas Aviators on Saturday night inside The Ballpark at America First Square. Nicholson finished with four RBI, a Triple-A career best, in front of the largest crowd (7,837) in the venue’s short history.
Salt Lake 9, Las Vegas 1
WP: Grayson Rodriguez (1-0)
LP: Domingo Robles (0-1)
Key Performers
Jeimer Candelario: 3-5, R
Ben Gobbel: 2-5, R, 2B, HR, 2 RBI, 2 K
Ryan Nicholson: 2-4, 2 R, 2B, HR, 4 RBI, K
Logan Porter: 2-2, R, HR, 2 RBI, BB
Grayson Rodriguez: W, 5.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R/1 ER, 5 K
Game Summary
The Bees wasted no time celebrating America’s 250th Birthday, kicking off Saturday’s game with a bang. Nelson Rada tripled into the right field corner, before Ben Gobbel deposited a homer onto the berm to give the hosts a 2-0 advantage.
In the third, Las Vegas clipped the lead to 2-1 on three straight two-out hits. However, starter Grayson Rodriguez, pitching as part of a MLB rehab assignment, kept the lead intact to complete three innings.
Rodriguez fired two more scoreless frames, getting a double play to end the fourth and recording his fifth punchout to close the fifth. Salt Lake began the bottom half with a pair of hits, and eventually extended their lead to 3-1 on a wild pitch.
The big league arm went out for his sixth inning of work, using his final five pitches to record the first out of the frame. That would signal the end of Rodriguez’ outing, capping 5.1 innings of one-run ball. New addition, reliever Dillon Tate, entered to get the remaining two outs of the inning in his Bees debut.
Salt Lake grew their lead in the bottom of the sixth, courtesy of Ryan Nicholson. The Kentucky alum hit the second longball to right field on Saturday, and his second at the Triple-A level to make it a 5-1 score. One inning later, a barrage of two-out noise put the Bees ahead 9-1. Nicholson tallied two more RBI on a double to left, before Logan Porter unloaded on an 83 mph changeup that left the yard for a two-run blast.
From there, the bullpen finished the job. Houston Harding tallied two scoreless frames, while Sammy Peralta came in for the ninth to buckle down the Independence Day victory just as America’s Finest flew over to salute the victorious home crowd, the largest in ballpark history.
Game Notes
- The Bees moved to 9-9 at home on the Fourth of July since 2005, and 2-0 inside The Ballpark at America First Square. Salt Lake has won four of their last five home contests on Independence Day, including three straight victories. When facing Las Vegas on the Fourth of July in the Beehive State, Salt Lake is 2-0, with the other victory coming in 2011 at Spring Mobile Ballpark.
- Salt Lake collected three home runs on Saturday night coming off the bats of Ben Gobbel, Ryan Nicholson and Logan Porter. It was the 10th time this season Salt Lake has had at least three longballs in a game improving to 9-1 when reaching that feat.
- Salt Lake scored nine runs on 14 hits while going 5-for-15 with runners in scoring position (.333). That was the third time this season the Bees had at 14 hits against the Aviators and first since doing so in back-to-back games on April 21 (14 hits) and April 22 (15 hits).
- Salt Lake had six of the nine starters post multi-hit performances. Leading the way was Jeimer Candelario, who finished as the only Bee with a three-hit game. This prolific team effort marked the first time since an 8-3 victory over Tacoma on May 21 that the Bees saw at least six players collect multiple hits in a single contest.
- In his first Triple-A outing since July 9, 2023 with Norfolk, Grayson Rodriguez shined. The right hander, on a major league rehab assignment, tossed 5.1 innings of walk-free baseball, yielding one run on four hits and struck out five. Tonight’s start was Rodriguez’s first with Salt Lake and his second career on the Fourth of July. Across both career starts on Independence Day, the Texan holds a 0.79 ERA (1 ER/11.1 IP) with seven hits allowed and 17 strikeouts.
- Nelson Rada tripled into the right field corner in his first-inning at-bat, marking the first knock for either side tonight. He has an extra-base hit in three straight Independence Day contests, including back-to-back years with a triple. Rada scored on Gobbel’s homer, coming home in consecutive games. A bunt single later gave him his 25th multi-hit effort of the campaign and 20th two-hit ledger.
- After Rada’s triple, Ben Gobbel moved his hit streak to 12 games, launching an opposite field longball onto the berm. The round-tripper ensured the infielder reached in every game as a Bee in 2026 (21 total). Across three levels of play this season, the infielder holds a 26-game on-base streak, dating back to May 30. Another hit secured back-to-back nights with a multi-hit effort.
- Jeimer Candelario snapped a two-game hitless skid with a three-hit night on Independence Day. This marked the first three hits of the month and his third career multi-hit ledger on the Fourth of July (2021 with Detroit; 2015 with Single-A Myrtle Beach). With a run tonight, Candelario has scored four runs in his last five games.
- Logan Porter has a hit in every Fourth of July game he has taken an at-bat in, moving to 7-for-12 (.583) in five career contests on the holiday. Porter actively holds a four-game hit streak and a seven-game on-base streak, both surpassing previous season-longs in 2026. The catcher reached in all four of his plate appearances this evening on a single (1st inning), walk (4th inning), hit-by-pitch (6th inning) and homer (7th inning). In his seventh inning at-bat, the catcher launched his second homer as a Bee, a moonshot into the visitors bullpen.
- With family in attendance, Ryan Nicholson launched his second homer of the season, a two-run blast that landed on the right field berm. The first baseman extended his hit streak to six games with the longball. He collected his ninth and 10th RBI on the homer, and now has at least one RBI in three straight games. He gathered two more RBI on a deep double into the left center gap, tallying a new Triple-A career high of four.
- Making his Salt Lake debut on Independence Day was Dillon Tate. The righty collected his first Bees strikeout on his first batter; it was Tate’s first Triple-A punchout since September 18, 2025 with the Buffalo Bisons. Tate got a groundout to end the sixth inning to record 0.2 scoreless frames of work. In two career outings on the Fourth of July, Tate has not allowed a run (2.2 innings).
- Houston Harding continued his hot stretch with another scoreless outing. The southpaw extends his scoreless streak to 10.1 innings with two flawless innings of work out of the ‘pen. He struck out one in his 16th appearance of the season.
- In his first career game on the Fourth of July, Christian Moore doubled, walked and scored a run tonight, the seventh time he has recorded that ledger in a single game this season. Only three of those lines have come in South Jordan (April 15 vs. Sugar Land; June 4 vs. Albuquerque; tonight vs. Las Vegas).
- Kyren Paris drew two walks and scored both times he reached, doing so for the second time as a Bee in 2026 (June 24 at Albuquerque).
- Arol Vera nabbed his second multi-hit performance as a Bee tonight (June 21 vs. Tacoma). The infielder has back-to-back games with a knock and at least one hit in three of his last four games.
Up Next
The patriotic weekend and series ends on Sunday with a 6:05 p.m. finale, as the Bees and Aviators will square off for the final time in 2026.