SAN I0SE 9, RENO 8 Gonzalez delivers but i Sox rally Ms short I By John Trent GAZETTE-JOURNAL .yS Imagine Chevy Chase putting during the movie "Caddyshack." Remember the scene where every putt Chevy hit went directly in the cup? That's roughly the same thing that happens whenever Reno Silver Sox outfielder Cliff Gonzalez steps to the plate. Call him Mr. RBI. Put runners on base in a desperate situation. Mr. RBI will drive them in. Sunday night at Moana Municipal Stadium, Gonzalez had three RBI to push his team-leading total to 63. Gonzalez's production wasn't enough to win the game, however, as San Jose handed the Silver Sox a 9-8 loss before 857 fans. Still;: GonzalezTt wb-Tun,' two- out double in the bottom of the ninth bulled the Sox to 9-8. Things got interesting after San Jose ace reliever Gary Sharko put the winning 'iriin on first base when he walked; Sox shorstop Tim Wallace.- , .--.Sharko," a right-hander with a 1.00 ERA in 54 innings, coaxed Tommy Mitchell into a ground-ball out to end the game. Without Gonzalez's double, the Giants would have been on their team bus and on their way out of Renda lot sooner. " . - y - "I probably tend to concentrate a little harder when I come up and men are on base," said Gonzalez, who was 3-for-5, "because you've got to knock the runs in to win the ballgame." Gonzalez said batting in one of the three power positions in the Sox lineup for most of the season has also helped his production. "Before this year, I was always batting second or first," said Gonzalez, who has hit only two home runs. "I've never really hit in an RBI spot before." "I probably tend to concentrate a little harder when I come up and men are on base. " Cliff Sonzalez Turn RBI lealtp Special hitting sessions with one of the game's great hitters haven't hurt, either. At the beginning of the month, Gonzalez was hitting in the .250 range. Now his average is up to .286. "Orlando Cepeda came to town a few days before the old-timers game (on July 10" arid htf raised my hands up on the bat and told me to be mdre aggressive at the plate," Gonzalez explained. The Giants bolted to a 5-0 first-inning lead off Sox starter Timber Mead, sending nine batters to the plate against theiSox's most dependable starter. ? In Mead's defense, the 26-year-old right-hander is in the midst of a weekly commute between his home in Portland, Ore., and Reno as his wife awaits the birth of the couple's second child. "Right now Timber's worried about his wife and baby and you can't expect a guy to be mentally 1 00 percent," Gonzalez said. By the sixth, after Mead had retired 15 of the next 16 batters he faced, the Sox led, 6-5. Joe Roebuck's sacrifice fly tied the score and catcher Tom Carcione's double that rolled to the left field corner drove in Rico Cortes to put the Sox ahead. San Jose took the lead in the seventh with two runs on an RBI single by ex-Sox Joel Chimelis and a groundout.