This is a press release courtesy of the Portland Beavers

Brian Myrow hit a three-run homer, Luke Carlin drove in two runs and Shawn Estes earned his team-leading fourth victory with his best effort of the season as the Portland Beavers handled the New Orleans Zephyrs 6-1 Saturday night at PGE Park.

The Beavers, who are 5-1 on their current homestand, have won three straight and six of their last seven. Saturday’s win helped Portland (13-14) gain another game on division-leading Salt Lake, which was defeated for a second night in a row to fall to 24-4 on the year.

Estes (4-2) worked a season-high seven innings and faced five batters over the minimum. The veteran left-hander struck out four and gave up just one unearned run and four hits to lower his season ERA to 3.67.

Reliever Josh Banks closed out the win with two scoreless innings.

Myrow’s homer – his third of the year – hit off the lower portion of the scoreboard in left-center to give the Beavers the lead in the bottom of the first against New Orleans starter Claudio Vargas. Chip Ambres followed with a double and came in to score on Carlin’s two-out double down the right field line for a 4-0 Portland lead.

Vargas (0-1) was on the losing end of the clash between former National League counterparts. He gave up six runs and nine hits over four innings in his first appearance of the year for New Orleans (16-13).

The Beavers, who had nine hits, got back-to-back RBI singles from Carlin and Craig Stansberry in the bottom of the third to go up 6-1.

With nine RBIs through his first 10 games this season, Carlin, who is batting .393, is more than halfway to eclipsing his season total of 17 RBIs tallied over 98 games with the Beavers last season.

Anderson Hernandez produced New Orleans’ lone run in the third when he reached on an infield single, advanced to second on a throwing error, moved to third on a groundout and scored on a balk by Estes.

The series continues Sunday at 2:05 p.m. The game will be televised live on FSN.

NOTES: Peter Ciofrone, who was transferred to Portland from Class AA San Antonio on Thursday, made his season debut for the Beavers … Ambres extended his hitting streak to seven games … Carlin has reached base in each of his 10 games … Estes threw 103 pitches, 61 for strikes … the Beavers have scored either five or six runs in each of their last eight wins.