The Altoona Curve broke a couple of bad streaks in Thursday morning\u2019s Kid\u2019s Special.
\nThe game which started at 10:35 a.m. and featured 7,414 fans, most of them school children, actually was well into the afternoon before Ray Navarrete ripped a bases-loaded single between third and short to give Altoona the 5-4 win.
\nMost of the young fans had already boarded the 85 buses that carried them to Blair County Ballpark from their individual schools by the time the Curve ended a string of seven straight loses to the Akron Aeros at BCB.
\nVeteran Shawn Skrehot opened the bottom of the 13th inning with a single to right. After Jose Castillo popped out, Chan Perry lined a double into the left field corner to put runners at second and third. Akron chose to intentionally walk Josh Bonifay, who was hitting just .131 at Blair County Ballpark at game time. Bonifay already had a pair of singles and a double in this contest however, so the Aeros chose to walk the Curve left fielder to set up a possible force at every base and pitch to Ray Navarrete, who was 0-for-5 for the day.
\nWith both infielders and outfielders drawn in where they could make a play at home to stop the potential game-winning run, Navarrete ripped a single to left to score Skrehot with the winning run.
\n\u201cI was looking for something up, something I could hit hard,\u201d said Navarrete, \u201csomething I could get through the infield. The count was my favorite, two balls and no strikes. I said to myself, \u2018if he throws anything in the strike zone, all I have to do is hit the ball hard. I was lucky enough to get a pitch about belt-high and I was able to find a hole.\u201d
\nThe Altoona pitching once again held the opponent in check, particularly the bullpen.
\nCurve starter Ben Shaffar left after five innings with the game tied 4-4. Shaffar, who was expected to be the Curve ace, has had some problems winning with a 1-3 mark and a 4.12 ERA, but pitched well, actually throwing just one bad pitch. That one was a three-run homer in the third inning by Grady Sizemore, who seems to be making a career of bashing Curve pitching.
\nAkron scored four times in all in the top of the third and then Shaffar and the Curve pen shut out the Aeros over the next 10 innings. Unfortunately, until the 13th, the Altoona bats were just as silent.
\n\u201cOur pitchers have been unbelievable all year, especially at home,\u201d said Navarrete. \u201cBut we have been having a tough time scoring runs. We have to tip our hats to them. They have kept us in a lot of games. Today we were down 4-1 and it looked like a tough day, but we fought back and the pitchers kept them at bay and we were able to walk away with a win.\u201d
\nAltoona had won just three games at home in their last 17 prior to Thursday\u2019s game, prompting Curve manager Dale Sveum to call a position players meeting at 8:30 a.m. before the 10:30 start.
\n\u201cIt turned out to be a good thing,\u201d said Navarrete. \u201cIt turned out to be like a rap session. The players and coaches talked about things like our approach to hitting and how we felt hitting at home as opposed to hitting away. We talked about the feelings, the emotions and frustrations we have had lately. A lot of the guys talked to each other and to Swamer (Sveum). It turned out to be a good day for us.\u201d
\nAltoona scored once in the second on a single by Bonifay and a sacrifice fly by Joe Caruso.
\nIn the fourth, the Curve tied the game with the help of three Akron errors. Caruso started the uprising with a bunt single and the big blow was a two-run double by designated hitter Kevin Nicholson.
\nJohn Grabow relieved Shaffar, tossing three innings of scoreless baseball striking out three and walking one. Grabow allowed two hits, both doubles, one to Akron catcher Brian Luderer to begin the seventh and one to Sizemore leading off the eighth. In both cases, Grabow was able to pitch out of trouble and strand runners at third base in both innings. Mike Johnston pitched three scoreless frames, adding to his scoreless to bring it to 18 and 1\/3 consecutive innings without giving up a run. Todd Ozias (2-1) pitched the 12th and 13th without allowing a hit to pick up the win.
\n\u201cWe had some mess-ups here and there and used our bullpen, but we battled and it was nice to pull that out,\u201d said Sveum. \u201c It was huge for us to get a win like that at home. Skrehot battled all day and had some good at bats. Chan Perry has been struggling a little bit the last few days. It was nice to see him come up with a big double like that. Navarrete just had to look for a good pitch to drive through the hole and he got it. We had a lot better attitude today. We still had some first-pitch swinging, but we battled.
\n\u201cYou can\u2019t say enough about our relief pitching. There\u2019s no telling where we would be without our relief pitching, our pitching period. They have been phenomenal. Shaffar didn\u2019t have too much today, but at least battled. Basically he gave up one pitch that was the difference in his day. Grabow was tremendous again. All of them are. It\u2019s just nice to be able go to all those guys and have that many bullets in your gun every day to shut teams out.\u201d
\nCurve right fielder Joe Caruso and Akron left fielder Alex Requena provided the play of the day. In the ninth inning, Caruso blasted what looked like a walkoff home run that would have given Altoona the win. Requena went back to the left field wall, leaped high and pulled the ball back into his glove, robbing Caruso of a four-bagger and continuing the game until Navarrete\u2019s base hit in the 13th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Altoona Curve broke a couple of bad streaks in Thursday morning\u2019s Kid\u2019s Special. The game which started at 10:35 a.m. and featured 7,414 fans, most of them school children, actually was well into the afternoon before Ray Navarrete ripped a bases-loaded single between third and short to give Altoona the 5-4 win. Most of […]<\/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-46456","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\/46456","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=46456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}