Saturday, August 16, 2008

Catfish return to winning ways

Missed a couple of nights in the ball park earlier this week because of a stomach flu.

Then, missed the first two games -- Friday and Saturday night -- for some events involving family.

The Columbus Catfish didn't miss me a bit. They won both Friday and Saturday night, 3-2 and 11-8.

Friday's game went 13 innings before the Catfish finally beat the Hagerstown Suns (Nationals):
In the bottom of the 9th, the Catfish got the bases loaded after a Quinn Stewart double, a Fontaine sacrifice where Stewart beat the ball to 3rd on a bang-bang play, allowing Fontaine to reach 1st. Henry Wrigley was then intentionally walked to bring up Dhaenens with the bases loaded and no one out. Dhaenens hit a ground ball to Blake Stouffer who made an errant throw home, but the catcher Reagin made a tremendous play and tagged Stewart out. Dan Leatherman then struck out Loyola and got Omar Luna to hit into a groundout to end the threat. But the Catfish would threaten again...

In the bottom of the 11th, the Catfish got a lead-off single from Fontaine, who was then caught stealing. Wrigley then doubled and Dhaenens followed with a single over the third basemen Valerio Heredia's glove. Justin Phillabaum then intentionally walked Loyola, giving the Catfish the bases loaded with one out. Phillabaum then induced a pop-out to short off the bat of Luna and then got Reid Fronk to line out to left. In the bottom of the 12th, the Catfish got a leadoff double from Greg Sexton, but were unable to move him.

Finally, in the bottom of the 13th, hope sprang eternal in the form of Robert Jacobsen, a position player making his 2nd appearance of the season, previously facing one hitter and getting him to fly out. He began the inning by allowing a rocket single up the middle off the bat Wrigley. Dhaenens was then hit by a pitch and then Loyola laid down a perfect bunt single. Luna and Wrigley then executed a perfect suicide squeeze to give the Catfish the 3-2 win and snap a 4 game losing streak.
Saturday night, the Catfish put up a lot of runs late to beat Hagerstown:
The Catfish had a huge 8th inning which began when Williams singled home Fontaine. O'Malley then hit a routine ground ball that scooted underneath Stouffer's glove, allowing the tying runs to score in the forms of Williams and Dhaenens. Fronk then singled to left field to score Loyola and then Sexton's infield single scored both O'Malley and Fronk to give the Catfish a 11-8 win.

The Catfish were led by Shawn Williams, who was 3-4 with 2 runs, and Reid Fronk, who was 2-5 with 2 runs scored. Greg Sexton drove in 3 runs for the Catfish. Alex Cobb took a no decision despite leaving another start with a lead. Jose Mejias took the win and Justin Garcia got his 5th save of the season.
The win Friday snapped a 4-game losing streak. The Saturday win makes it ... officially ... a winning streak.

Game 3 of the series is Sunday night.

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