Brett Anderson has successful rehab appearance in Quakes loss

RANCHO CUCAMONGA ---  The Quakes went down to the Mavericks (Rangers) 8-3 but the storyf this game was the return of Dodger left-handed pitcher Brett Anderson.

Anderson had arthroscopic surgery to repair a bulging disk in his lower back in March and on Thursday night at LoanMart Field, he made his first appearance in a game this year.

After his outing, Anderson said he felt "fine" and was in good spirits.

"It was good to get up and down three times," Anderson said, "fielding my position in the first inning, just getting some of those plays out of the way, getting back to pitching, worrying about pitching rather than how my body is feeling."

Anderson pitched three innings, allowing a run, five hits, and struck out one.  He got five ground ball outs.

"It was kind of like a normal outing, I gave up my fair share of hits, some choppers, some ground ball singles, got some ground balls, " Anderson said, "I was fairly efficient, 36 pitches through three, I had to go throw 19 more down in the bullpen, that's alway good to be efficient for the first time."

Anderson said the plan was three innings for this start, then a five inning start and a six inning start.

"The best case scenario is that I have two more rehab starts," Anderson said, and as he finished his thoughts on this appearance "for first one in a long time, months and months, it was pretty good, I'd say."

After Anderson finished, the Quakes and Mavericks were tied but then the Mavericks hit three solo home runs and led 4-2 going to the ninth inning.

The Mavericks then scored four runs to take an 8-2 lead.  The Quakes scored a run in the ninth but were unable to get past a 2-for-14 with runners scoring in position evening.

Tommy Bergjans took the loss.  Matt Beaty and Erick Mejia each had three hits, Michael Ahmed went 2-for-3.