Link Report for Sun. 5/24 -- Monster Games for Schafer, Peralta

[Mass Haas]

Final: West Tenn (Mariners) 6, Huntsville 3

 

Huntsville Site Game Summary

Ninth Inning Rally for Victorious Jaxx

West Tenn Comes Back to Beat Stars

By Brett Pollock / Huntsville Stars

Yamid Haad doubled home the go-ahead run in a five-run ninth inning rally, as West Tenn came back to stun Huntsville 6-3 Sunday afternoon in the fourth of a five-game set at Joe Davis Stadium. The Diamond Jaxx won for the first time in eight tries against the Stars, who dropped to 20-19 and saw their lead over Tennessee in the North Division sliced to a game after the Smokies beat Birmingham.

 

Juan Sandoval recorded the last out in the eighth inning and opened the ninth by giving up a single to Greg Halman, who advanced to second base on a fielding error by Vinny Rottino and moved to third base on a wild pitch. Marshall Hubbard walked and Matt Mangini followed with a single that plated Halman to cut the Stars lead to 3-2 and send Hubbard to third. Sandoval uncorked another wild pitch that allowed Hubbard to score to tie the game and Manginin advance to second base. Erick Monzon's sacrifice bunt pushed Mangini to third and nudged Sandoval out of the game, as he was replaced by Robert Hinton, who intentionally passed Johan Limonta, the first batter he faced. Haad then ripped the first pitch he saw to left for a double to drive in Mangini to put the visitors in the lead for the first time and move Limonta to third. Oswaldo Navarro then lined the first pitch he saw for a single to score Limonta and move to Haad to third from where he then scored on a Mel Stocker ground out to complete the uprising. West Tenn improved to 17-25 and won for just the second time in 20 games when trailing entering the ninth inning. Sandoval suffered his first loss and second blown save, while Hinton's 14 1/3 scoreless innings streak was brought to a halt.

 

Freddy Parejo singled in a run in the second inning to get the scoring started for the home team against starter Danny Christensen. Rottino's lead off long ball and a Yohannis Perez scoring fly ball in the fourth pushed the Stars' lead to 3-0. From there, Christensen settled in and wound up retiring the last 12 batters he faced to close out a season-long seven inning outing during which he gave up three runs on six hits, walked two and struck out three. Anthony Varvaro took over and retired the next five batters before walking Parejo to end the string. Perez struck out to end the game, as Varvaro grabbed his second win.

 

Stars' starter Mark Holliman allowed only one single through five scoreless innings before Hubbard's two-out double in the sixth chased home Stocker with West Tenn's first run and chased the right-hander from the game. Derrick Ellison took over and set down all six hitters he faced before giving way to Sandoval. Holliman, who remains winless in four home starts, yielded three hits, walked two and struck out five.

 

The series concludes Monday afternoon with southpaw David Welch getting the start for Huntsville against West Tenn right-hander Justin Souza. Coverage of the game begins at 12:45 PM central time and can be heard through the internet at www.huntsvillestars.com.

 

Huntsville Box Score

A roster move will need to be made Monday to bring David Welch back to the active roster; hmmm, would Rob Wooten have blown this save? -- the Stars should find out soon, and no, we have no knowledge of an impending transaction involving Wooten; Taylor Green a double and a walk; Jonathan Lucroy just 5-for-37 (.135) in his last ten games...

 

Huntsville Game Log

Never understood why you ask a reliever (Robert Hinton) to come into a game and then intentionally walk the first batter he faces! Throws off his rhythm from the bullpen -- couldn't Juan Sandoval have done that? That walk came around to score later, charged to Hinton, who wasn't effective regardless...

[Mass Haas]

Followup video of the fun the Sounds had with some deaf kids last week

[LouisEly]

Has BC had that many rainouts where Rapoza has not had an opportunity to pitch in 12 days, or is something else going on? He's quietly been on quite a run his last 25 outings dating back to his promotion to Helena.

 

Koshansky quietly up to 9 HRs. Katin with two dingers and a triple in his last two games. Katin the next marginal prospect to get traded for bench help? Supposedly he has quite an arm in RF as well.

[trwi7]

Has BC had that many rainouts where Rapoza has not had an opportunity to pitch in 12 days, or is something else going on? He's quietly been on quite a run his last 25 outings dating back to his promotion to Helena.

Games on the 14th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st were rained out or cancelled due to wet grounds, so there wasn't much time in there to get pitchers work.

[Mass Haas]

Link while active, text follows:

 

Stars falter in last inning

West Tenn scores five runs late to claim 6-3 victory

By Paul Gattis

Huntsville Times Sports Staff, paul.gattis@htimes.com

 

The Huntsville Stars have done it all season. So a little payback was perhaps way overdue.

 

"I don't know about that," Stars left fielder Vinny Rottino said. "But that's part of the game."

 

Sunday's part of the game kicked the Stars in the teeth when reliever Juan Sandoval couldn't hold a two-run lead in the ninth inning and West Tenn rallied for a 6-3 victory at Joe Davis Stadium.

 

The Diamond Jaxx scored five runs in the ninth to wipe out the Stars' 3-1 lead and four-game winning streak.

 

Of the Stars' 20 win this season, eight have come in their final at-bat - most recently a 1-0 win over West Tenn on Friday night. So the other shoe dropped Sunday on the Stars.

 

"We've lost some tough games and we've won our share of tough games," manager Bob Miscik said. "It's baseball. They came back and got us."

 

It fell apart quickly for the Stars, which held the Diamond Jaxx to just three hits entering the ninth inning behind the work of starter Mark Holliman and reliever Derrick Ellison.

 

Sandoval, who got the final out in the eighth, opened the ninth allowing a single to Greg Halman - who advanced to second on Rottino's error.

 

Marshall Hubbard followed with a walk, Matt Mangini singled home Halman, and Erick Monzon bunted Mangini to second.

 

And Sandoval (1-1) was out of the game - allowing three runs in 2/3 of an inning. Sandoval came into the game allowing just four runs in 13 innings.

 

"That's not as sharp as I've seen him," Miscik said. "I've seen him with more life on his fastball. The big pitch that cost him was he had Halman 1-2 and threw the slider, and Halman hit it. If he throws that pitch where he wants it and gets the lead-off hitter in the ninth, you start feeling good."

 

But Miscik started feeling bad long before the ninth. The Stars roughed up West Tenn starter Danny Christensen for three runs in four innings - including Rottino's first home run of the season. But then Christensen found a groove and retired the final 12 Stars he faced.

 

And the Stars never built on that early 3-0 lead.

 

"Their lefty did a good job keeping them in the game," Miscik said. "I was thinking that about the fifth or sixth. You never know at the end of the game. The ninth inning is always hard. It could have gotten out of hand there easily there, and it didn't. And they came back on us."

 

The Stars still lead the Southern League North division by one game over Tennessee heading into today's home finale against West Tenn. The Stars were 7-0 against the Diamond Jaxx before Sunday's loss.

 

"The odds were we were going to give eventually, and we gave in the ninth inning," Miscik said.

 

But an agonizing loss, Rottino said, won't undermine the confidence the Stars had built.

 

"You're going to have games like that," Rottino said. "So what? You chalk it up to whatever. You can't dwell on it. We're playing really well. We have guys here who are grinders and going to fight every step of the way. So we're going to be fine."