Sean Burnett had a nasty curve on Wednesday night against the Trenton Thunder at Blair County Ballpark. As a mater of fact, the Altoona Curve left-hander was in command of all his pitches to the consternation of the visiting Trenton Thunder.
\nBurnett tossed the lowest hit shutout in Curve history allowing just two harmless singles in defeating Trenton 3-0.
\nWith the win, the Curve swept Trenton in three straight for the first time in their five years in the Eastern league, improving their once-woeful home record to 15-15 despite going through an 11-game losing streak at BCB earlier this season.
\nThe victory matches the franchise record with six straight wins and sets the Curve firmly in second place two and 1\/2 games in front of Reading.
\nThe lowest hit shutout had been a three-hitter by Brad Guy on August 29 of last year.
\nWhen catcher Chris Heintz was asked what had worked for Burnett against Trenton, Heintz replied, \u201cEverything, and that\u2019s why it seemed so easy. Every pitch I called seemed to be right where he needed to be. That\u2019s an excellent hitting team over there in Trenton. The Yankees always have guys who can swing the bat. That makes it even more of a nice performance. You don\u2019t really see too many shutouts. I can probably count the number I\u2019ve caught on one hand.\u201d
\nHeintz reached back into his memory to compare Burnett with others he has caught. \u201cThe only guy that sticks out that compares to him is Mark Burhle, who I caught when he was in Double-A in Birmingham. He did that in 2000 and it wasn\u2019t too long after that he was in Chicago,\u201d said Heintz of Burhle, who won 18 games last year for the White Sox. \u201cHe compares with Burley in being able to throw every pitch for a strike and Sean also has a bulldog mentality.\u201d
\nThe Curve broke into the scoring column in the bottom of the third. With one out, Shaun Skrehot drilled a ball to the deepest part of Blair County Ballpark for a double to straight-away center over the head of Thunder centerfielder Kevin Reese. Leadoff hitter Kevin Nicholson slammed the ball to right for a double to score Skrehot for a 1-0 Curve lead.
\nNicholson added singles in the first and seventh innings and had three hits in four trips to the plate. Continuing his heavy hitting, the Curve third baseman who was just announced as the Eastern League\u2019s Chevrolet Player of the Week ending June 15, has 12 hits in his last 18 at bats, a .667 clip. Nicholson, from Surrey, British Columbia was the first-ever Canadian born player to be drafted in the first round when he was selected by the San Diego Padres in the first round of the June 1997 draft.
\nBurnett allowed a single to Andy Cannizaro with one out in the top of the first, than retired 16 straight hitters before Reese singled to left with two gone in the sixth. Burnett struck out three, walked one in improving his record to 7-3, completing the nine-inning shutout throwing only 89 pitches.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s one of the better ones in my career,\u201d acknowledged Burnett when questioned about his pitching performance. \u201cI took a little off on my first pitch tonight to get ahead of the batter. I had some trouble with that in my last start. I was getting ahead of the hitters and actually getting a lot of ground balls on the first or second pitch I gave them. By the second or third inning, I found my groove. I started hitting spots and really feeling comfortable.\u201d
\nThe Curve players wore replica uniforms of the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirate team that won the National League pennant and defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series which featured Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Bill Madlock, Omar Moreno and others. Burnett looked a lot like another slim left-hander on the Pirates staff at that time \u2014 John \u201cCandy Man\u201d Candelaria. Burnett however confessed he had barely heard of \u201cthe Candy Man\u201d saying he wasn\u2019t even born in 1979.
\nAltoona added a couple insurance runs in the sixth, taking advantage of two free passes.
\nWith one out, Jose Castillo and Chan Perry drew back-to-back walks. Each moved up a base on a ground out by Brett Roneberg. Back on the roster after recovering from an injury, Lock Haven native Joe Caruso came up with a timely hit looping a single into shallow right to drive in both Castillo and Perry.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been very blessed with the hits I\u2019ve been getting,\u201d said Caruso. \u201cJust going out there and helping the team win. It\u2019s really the only thing I really wanted to do. Early on in the year, I was hot, but I really wasn\u2019t helping the team win. It was personal success, but not team success. Right now, I\u2019m helping with team success and that feels great.\u201d
\nCaruso cited the difference in the way the team has been playing during the current hot streak (11 wins in the last 13 games) to a few of the veterans producing as expected in the preseason.
\n\u201cThe difference is Brett Roneberg and myself. We haven\u2019t been doing much. They (Pirate organization) brought us over here to do some stuff and we haven\u2019t been doing it. Brett has been doing well lately and I started hitting the ball well. If you get guys who have proven that they can hit in Double-A playing to their potential, plus everybody else playing as well as they are playing we should win. We are going to have the deepest bench in the Eastern League. You can give guys a rest, because you know you\u2019re not going to be hurting for a player out there. Coming off the bench they are just as good as anybody else.\u201d
\nThe Curve continues their homestand Thursday with the first of a four-game set against the Harrisburg Senators. Altoona will throw right-hander Landon Jacobsen (5-4, 2.44 ERA) and the Senators will counter with righty pitcher Ron Chiavacci (1-4, 6.02). Game time is 7:05 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sean Burnett had a nasty curve on Wednesday night against the Trenton Thunder at Blair County Ballpark. As a mater of fact, the Altoona Curve left-hander was in command of all his pitches to the consternation of the visiting Trenton Thunder. Burnett tossed the lowest hit shutout in Curve history allowing just two harmless singles […]<\/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-46219","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\/46219","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=46219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}