Link Report for Games of Saturday, August 30th

[Mass Haas]

Final: Helena 4, Great Falls (White Sox) 3

Helena Site Game Summary:

Brewers Hold Off Voyagers

 

The Helena Brewers kept their playoff hopes alive Saturday night as they defeated the Great Falls Voyagers 4-3. Helena used just seven hits to outlast the second place Voyagers. The Brewers scored two runs in the first and one run in the third and fourth innings en route to the win. Great Falls tried to comeback, as they scored a run in the fourth and two runs in the sixth but couldn't quite catch Helena. Great Falls had nine hits, led by Tyler Kuhn who was 3-for-4 with a double and Kyle Shelton who went 2-for-3 with two RBI's.

 

David Fonseca led the Brewers with a 2-for-2 effort at the plate and two RBI's. John Delaney hit his ninth home run in the fourth inning off of Voyager starter Kevin Skogley, who suffers the loss. He allowed seven hits and four runs in five complete innings of work. Efrain Nieves picks up the win for Helena, as the left-hander went six complete innings allowing nine hits but just three runs and struck out seven Voyager hitters. Trey Watten came in and shut down Great Falls for his first save of his professional career, as he went three innings and didn't allow a hit. Great Falls leads the Brewers by three games in the second half. The two teams square off again Sunday afternoon in Helena.

 

Helena Box Score

Sunday's game is Helena's last chance to gain directly on Great Falls; five more games follow next week as the Pioneer League season always extends several days past other leagues; John Delaney has shown surprising pop this season; nice mound work by Efrain Nieves and Trey Watten, as noted -- you're doing your job in a rookie league when you can get through six full as Nieves did here...

 

Helena Game Log

[Mass Haas]

David Weiser's www.starsboxscore.com

 

One more for the road

Weather nice, outcome not in my one and only road trip

 

Eddie Rodriguez's two-run home run in the 5th inning broke a 1-1 tie as the Chattanooga Lookouts handed the Huntsville Stars a 5-2 defeat Saturday night, at AT&T Field....... A rather ordinary game until you realize this was the Stars' first visit to Chattanooga since that big on-field brawl between these two teams on July 12, in which nine players ended up being ejected.

 

Wanting to start another beanball war and precipitate a brawl the size and scope of the one seen the last time these two teams met here is the one thing you would least expect to see. After all, there's only two games left in the season after this......... Why risk another round of fines and suspensions, knowing Southern League president Don Mincher is not going to be merciful at all this time? Nothing at stake. The season's been over for both teams for quite awhile....... So, while the Stars and Lookouts traded knockdown pitches tonight, they didn't have the same effect.

 

With one out in the 3rd inning and the Stars in front 1-0, Mike Jones decked catcher Eddie Rodriguez on a 3-1 pitch, then pitcher Travis Wood on a 1-1 delivery........ Neither pitch was a fastball, and Jones has walked more than he's struck out this year, and seldom tops 91 or 92 MPH anymore anyway, so no one was stirring, not even a mouse....... But when Wood came back in the top of the 4th and threw his first pitch at the ankles of the Stars' most dangerous clutch hitter of late, Michael Garciaparra, who happened to have homered in the 1st inning to give the Stars a 1-0 lead, it prompted home plate ump Chris Ward to issue a warning....... That was all that was needed, and the game was free from any tension, even though Wood hit Garciaparra in the wrist in the 6th inning.

 

For me, this was all for baseball this year....... I was present for the "triple-header" at Joe Davis Stadium between the Mudcats and Stars, but with another day of two jobs to look forward to, beginning at 4 AM, I just wasn't in the mood to stick around to see Alcides Escobar break the club record for hits in a season. So with a rain check courtesy of a June 1 rainout, I filled up and took to the road for the first and only time this year....... One more for the road, and the weather was perfect.

 

Garciaparra's home run off the center of the scoreboard in left field came on a 3-2 pitch right after Guilder Rodriguez had been thrown out trying to steal. (G. Rod had reached on a single to left, near the line.)...... Mike Jones, wilder than usual with three walks, two hit batters, and two wild pitches, held on to his thin 1-0 lead until Justin Turner scored in the 4th........ Turner drew a walk on a 3-1 pitch, went to second on Chris Valaika's single to right, then to third when Drew Anderson beat out a double play throw to first which would have ended the inning.......But Turner didn't stop there, scoring on the razzle-dazzle between Ozzie Chavez and Michael Bell.

 

The Stars, hitting .254 in their last 12 games, could manufacture just three more hits after the first inning -- a ground-ball single by Chavez that shortstop Valaika made a sloppy attempt to field, failing to get his glove down for it, and two hits in the 9th -- back-to back hits by G. Rod to left and a liner by Garciaparra to right-center........ The game-winning homer that made Jones a loser came off the bat of Eddie Rodriguez in his next at-bat after being hit with Jones' pitch in the 3rd. The drive, on a 2-1 pitch, went over the wall in right field under the Bud Light sign, and was caught by a fan in the canopied bleacher section in right........ Eric Eymann finished Chattanooga's scoring with a two-run double to the corner in left, scoring Valaika, who walked to lead off the 6th, and Anderson, who singled.

 

The game was preceded by a ceremony for Chattanooga native and baseball veteran Cal Ermer. AT&T Field's press box was christened the Cal Ermer Press Box...... Ermer, now 82 and a fixture at every Chattanooga game, was manager of the Minnesota Twins for two seasons (1967-68) and manager of the Lookouts from 1952-57 and won over 1,900 games as a minor league manager.

 

Sunday, Brae Wright (6-10) will try to get his first win since June 26. Originally, it was thought to be David Welch, who will finish as the team's only ten-game winner this year....... Welch won only two of his last seven starts after getting his 9th win on July 18th. The record of 14 set by Dan Eskew in 1990 and tied by Bobby Chouinard in 1995 is safe for another season....... Welch will finish 11-4. He had a 4.42 ERA in his last nine appearances...... Going for Chattanooga will be Sam LeCure (9-7, 3.50), who has won just two of his last ten starts.

 

The Stars will open at home next year on April 9 vs. Mobile. It will be the first time the Stars have ever opened the season against the Bay Bears...... They'll close at home on September 7 with a 1 PM game against the Jacksonville Suns. The Stars will also play the Suns at home, June 11-15........ All Sunday games next year will start at 1 PM. Boy, oh boy, I can't wait for those scorching July-August affairs....... The Stars will also be at home on July 4th of next year (which falls on a Saturday), playing host to the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx.

 

The Stars finished with just over 160,000 at the gate this year (160,080). They didn't quite get to last year's 164,079, but they managed to avoid the record low of 158,775, established in 2006....... The largest crowd was July 4th's 9,444.

 

Gaby Sanchez, 7th in the league in batting, beat out Mat Gamel for the Southern League MVP award........ Gamel, who seemed so certain to break some club records this year, and was so certain to be the MVP, wound up hitting .243 for July and .205 in August, finishing his season at Huntsville with a .329 average before his promotion to Nashville on August 24. His struggle continues with the Sounds hitting .238 with one HR and three RBI there........ Four players made the post-season All-Star team from Huntsville -- Gamel, Michael Brantley (who was awarded this year's Rocky award by the Stars Booster Club), Angel Salome, who will set a new club batting record, eclipsing Mike Neill's leaegue-leading .340 of 1997, and Alcides Escobar, who set the club record for hits in a season last Wednesday.

 

History of the Rocky Award

 

David, who won the Booster Club's Eagle Award?

[Mass Haas]

Link while active, text follows:

 

Brewers outlast Voyagers, keep playoff hopes alive

By Cliff Pfenning - Helena Independent Record

 

As confusing as the Pioneer League playoff race is, the Helena Brewers head into today's game with Great Falls knowing one key thing - they need to win.

 

Helena kept itself in the league playoff race with a 4-3 victory over Great Falls Saturday at Kindrick Legion Field and face the Voyagers for the final time this season at 4:05 PM (5:05 Central).

 

The Brewers got a pair of hits and two RBI from shortstop David Fonseca, a home run from third baseman John Delaney and another solid effort from pitcher Efrain Nieves to move within three games of Great Falls.

 

Or, they moved within four games.

 

"They guys all think we're four games back, but I think it's three," reliever Garrett Sherrill said after the game. "Whatever it is, we just need to win to make it matter.

 

"We really need to beat Great Falls (today)."

 

Helena (32-38) moved to within three games of Great Falls (35-35) in the overall standings, which becomes important if Billings wins the second-half title in the North Division.

 

Billings won the first half and if it wins the second half the best overall record from the division's other three teams would qualify for the four-team playoffs.

 

But, Great Falls (16-16) is just two games behind Billings (17-13) in the second-half standings. If Great Falls wins the division, it would automatically qualify for the playoffs.

 

Helena (12-20) is six games behind Billings, and four behind Great Falls in the second-half race.

 

A win today would move the Brewers just two games behind the Voyagers. Or, three games depending on the standings used.

 

"It's been a tough season and we just need to grind out these last few games and make the playoffs," right fielder Erik Komatsu said. "The game with Great Falls is very important because we're chasing them."

 

Nieves, a seventh-round pick in the 2007 draft, went six innings with seven strikeouts and no walks to earn his sixth win of the season.

 

Trey Watten pitched three hitless innings for his first save of the season.

 

The Brewers, who lost 7-0 in Missoula Friday, supported their pitchers with seven hits, including Delaney's ninth homer in the fourth inning for a 4-1 lead.

 

Komatsu had one hit and remained in the hunt for the league batting title with a .329 average.

 

Komatsu, a 2008 draft pick, and first baseman Brock Kjeldgaard were named to the league all-star team Saturday.

 

"It's a really neat thing to be on an all-star team, espeically because it's my first year," Komatsu said. "But, right now we need to win games and that's what's important."

 

The Brewers finish the season with a pair of home games with Missoula, Monday and Tuesday, and then play three games in Billings.

[battlekow]

Wily Peralta was certainly on a short pitch count as starter -- he retired four of the nine batters he faced (one was on a sacrifice fly), and was lifted with one on and one out in the 2nd...

According to the PBP, he left with an injured leg.