Altoona allowed the Harrisburg Senators to jump out to a quick lead in the first inning, then came back to tie the game, only to let it slip away in the eighth. Harrisburg scored four runs in the top of the eighth on four hits, one, a broken bat infield single, three walks and at least one fly ball that should have been caught, but fell in for a base hit, to win their second game in a row at Blair County Ballpark after dropping their nine previous games here.
\nWith Paul Stewart on the mound for Altoona, the Senators scored two unearned runs in the first on a two-out error by third baseman Tom Evans and a single by Edgar Gonzalez.
\nWith 4,094 fans in attendance, Stewart then shut out Harrisburg over the next six innings before giving way to Greg Martin and Justin Kaye in relief. Stewart scattered four hits, including two by Gonzalez, striking out two and walking none over seven complete innings in his best outing of the year, but left with a no-decision when his teammates couldn\u2019t get him the lead.
\n\u201cI felt good out there today,\u201d said the tall (6-5, 230) Curve righty. \u201cI was able to keep us in the game. Unfortunately, we weren\u2019t able to get the payoff in the end.\u201d
\nIn fact he helped himself on offense by hitting a fifth-inning double that scored batterymate Chris Snusz who had singled and then scored on an infield hit by Rajai Davis and error that put Davis on second.
\n\u201cThat was just a lucky stroke, I guess,\u201d said Stewart. \u201cHe (Harrisburg starter Zach Day) threw me a fast ball and two sliders the first time up, so I just swung at the fast fastball the next time, because I didn\u2019t want to see that slider again. And it worked.\u201d
\nSnusz, a seldom-used catcher was the hitting star for the Curve with a single and double and a run scored, Snusz was playing in place of starter Carlos Maldonaldo, who got the afternoon off after catching the early evening game against the Senators on Sunday evening. Maldonaldo has batted .360 (18-for-50) in his last 16 games, to raise his season average to .286.
\nDay, a major league pitcher, down at the Washington Nationals\u2019 Double franchise in Harrisburg on a rehab assignment (right radius fracture), went five innings in his third rehab start giving up two runs, both earned on six hits with three strikeouts and no walks.
\n\u201cWe definitely can use a break,\u201d said Curve manager Tony Beasley. The Curve are off for the next two days while the Eastern League All-Star game is being played at Portland\u2019s Hadlock Field. \u201cWe have been really flat the last two days. Today was embarrassing. I don\u2019t like to be part of games like that. I\u2019m sure the guys are not proud of the way they played today. Stewart did a nice job. We made two mistakes in the first inning that cost us two runs. He threw the ball extremely well. We fell apart in the eighth again defensively. We just didn\u2019t get it done. We\u2019re not swinging the bats well, not playing with good energy. Hopefully these two days will get us back on track. Some of the guys can get some much-needed rest, or get their minds back in line with what they need to do. We had a tie game until the eighth and it looked like our defense got a little lax. In the outfield we broke back on a few balls and at least one, we couldn\u2019t recover. It was a mental lapse, a lack of concentration. We can\u2019t afford to do that. Offensively, we weren\u2019t aggressive. Zach Day is a pretty good major league pitcher, but we have to do our part. We have to come to work and fight and battle. I want the guys to compete and go up to the plate with a game plan.\u201d
\nThe Curve will be well represented at the All-Star Game. Pitchers Brad Borner and Tom Gorzelanny, infielders Jose Bautista and Josh Bonifay and outfielder Rajai Davis were selected as players, and Beasley and assistant coaches Jeff Andrews, Matt Winters and trainer Jason Palmer will also be there.
\n\u201cIts going to be fun,\u201d was how Bonifay summed up the opportunity to play in the All-Star Game. \u201cWe have five guys going, it\u2019s a good thing for the organization and it\u2019s a good thing for the Curve. Next year, we get the All-Star game, it would have been nice to play in front of the hometown fans. Going into the break, these guys need a day off. We\u2019ve been playing really bad. We haven\u2019t been swinging the bats well and the pitchers have been pitching their tails off. Haven\u2019t been getting any runs for them. We split with Harrisburg 2-2, but we haven\u2019t done the fundamentals, we look lackadaisical in the field. We have been playing every single day, we need the time to heal and rest up. I have already lost six pounds, it puts a little wear-and-tear on your body. It would have been nice to have the days off, but going up there is a big honor.\u201d
\nAltoona goes on the road following the All-Star break for three games at Harrisburg and three games at Erie, before coming home on Friday, July 22 to begin a seven-game homestand with three games against Harrisburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Altoona allowed the Harrisburg Senators to jump out to a quick lead in the first inning, then came back to tie the game, only to let it slip away in the eighth. Harrisburg scored four runs in the top of the eighth on four hits, one, a broken bat infield single, three walks and at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}