GAME STORY COURTESY OF THE ALTOONA CURVE
Altoona built an early lead, but dropped a 5-4 decision in ten innings to the Erie SeaWolves on Saturday afternoon at UPMC Park.
Altoona took a 4-0 lead across the first two innings with patience at the plate. Altoona drew three first inning walks against Erie starter Ty Madden, capped off by a bases loaded walk from Connor Scott. The 36-pitch frame turned out to be the only inning that Erie would get from their starter as the Curve used four straight hits to begin the second inning off reliever Williander Moreno to take a three-run lead. Domingo Leyba drove in a pair with a single and after Henry Davis reached on an error by the shortstop to load the bases, Mason Martin drew a bases loaded walk to force in another run and make it 4-0.
The Curve earned seven walks across the first 4 innings of the game but managed just three baserunners the rest of the way; a single from Dylan Shockley in the fifth, a Davis walk in the ninth inning and a walk from Drew Maggi in the tenth.
Right-hander Sean Sullivan made his Double-A debut in a starting role, tossing 2.1 scoreless innings on 54 pitches, 34 strikes. He struck out three and allowed just two hits and one walk in his outing before giving way to Matt Eckelman. Eckelman was solid in relief, but left the game with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth inning. Travis MacGregor entered a struck out the first batter he faced before Erie plated their first run of the day on an error by Maggi and then tied the game with a three-run triple off the bat of Gage Workman.
The game stayed tied at four into the ninth inning when Erie loaded the bases with one out. Diego Rincones lifted a fly ball to shallow right field that Matt Fraizer caught and then fired a line drive throw to home to keep Colt Keith from scoring and send the game to extras.
Altoona couldn’t bring home a run in the top of the tenth inning with Fraizer popping out to the shortstop and then Shockley bouncing into an inning-ending double play; setting up Erie’s bottom half of the inning. After a fly ball out to right-center advanced the placed runner to third base, Mario Feliciano singled off of Cameron Junker to bring the winning run home and send the SeaWolves to their second walk-off win of the week against Altoona.
Shockley and Lolo Sanchez paced the Curve offense with two-hit games. Curve batters drew a season-high nine walks in the loss.
The Curve wrap up their six-game series with the SeaWolves, Double-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, on Sunday afternoon. First pitch is set for 1:35 p.m. with RHP Aaron Shortridge on the mound for Altoona against RHP Sawyer Gipson-Long for Erie.
