The Sky Sox had a measure of motivation Friday night: Prevent the Sacramento RiverCats from celebrating a division championship in Colorado Springs. 

Not to be. 

Leadoff batter Corey Wimberly had three hits and scored three times and No. 2 hitter Eric Sogard added four hits, including a home run in the ninth inning, to lead Sacramento’s death-by-1,000-cuts offense in a 12-8 victory. 

Sacramento clinched the Pacific Coast League’s Pacific South title. 

“You don’t always like that,” said Sky Sox first baseman Mike Paulk, who had a home run, double and single and four RBIs. “But good for them. We’ve been out of it for awhile. We did everything we could.” 

Third baseman Brad Eldred hit his 29th home run of the season and was a single short of the cycle. 

“We hit the ball well tonight. We did everything we could do, but they came out swinging,” Paulk said. 

The teams traded runs in the first inning. The RiverCats’ first two batters, Wimberly and Sogard, got base hits and Wimberly scored on Tommy Everridge’s groundout. Kaz Matsui doubled to lead off for the Sky Sox and scored on Jay Payton’s single. 

But Sacramento kept going, scoring in every inning except the third and sixth and finishing with 21 hits. The RiverCats had a string of four hits in the second and three-hit strings in the first and eighth innings, home runs by Corey Brown in the fifth and Matt Watson in the eighth. 

John Halama (6-2), the third RiverCats pitcher, was the winner. Juan Rincon (4-4), the third of four Sky Sox pitchers, who gave up three runs in four hits in two-thirds of an inning, took the loss. 

Notes 

The Sky Sox, with Thursday night’s 3-1 victory over Tacoma, swept the season series against all three teams in the Pacific North Division. The Sky Sox won 9-of-16 games from the Rainiers, Salt Lake and Portland. Their big downfall was against teams in the American North Division, against which they were 2-14. … With his leadoff double, Matsui extended his hitting streak to a season-high 11 games. … Every player in the Sacramento lineup had at least one hit.

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