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AirHogs Sweep Explorers in Twinbill, Series

May 31, 2012 - American Association (AA)
Grand Prairie AirHogs News Release


SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- A long night of baseball at Lewis and Clark Park resulted in two more wins for the Grand Prairie AirHogs, as starter Nick DeBarr held off a Sioux City Explorers comeback in the first half of a doubleheader and Grand Prairie scored five runs in the sixth to sweep the nightcap, winning 3-2 and 6-2 on Thursday night to sweep the Explorers in their three-game series.

Grand Prairie (8-5) started slowly in the nightcap, with Sioux City starter Jason Jarvis retiring the first eight AirHogs and 10 of the first 11. Meanwhile, the AirHogs relievers tasked with pitching the entire game had fallen behind 2-0 on a Kris Sanchez home run off spot starter Derrick Miramontes in the second and a Ray Serrano sac fly off Ronnie Morales (1-0) in the third.

But Morales danced around further trouble in the third and worked around singles in the fourth and fifth to keep the Explorers (5-8) at bay.

Meanwhile, Grand Prairie broke through on rookie Kenny Held's first professional hit (he was making his first start in the nightcap), a solo homer to left-center with two outs in the fifth off Jarvis.

The comeback was cemented an inning later though. Keanon Simon led off with a double to right-center off Eddie Delacruz (1-1). After Bridger Hunt struck out, Trent Lockwood doubled to right and Andres Rodriguez grounded a two-bagger to left to give the AirHogs the lead. After Greg Porter walked and Brian Myrow popped out, Thomas hit another double to make it 4-2. In came Explorers righty Andrew Snowdon, and Held smoked a single to left in front of a sliding Brian Bistagne to give Grand Prairie two more runs.

After Morales finished his three innings, Griffin Bailey got three flyouts in the sixth (two on nice catches from Thomas in left) and Justin Dowdy worked around a one-out bloop single to throw a scoreless seventh and finish off the sweep.

In the first game, DeBarr (3-0) threw only 83 pitches and only 22 out of the strike zone in his second consecutive complete-game win, allowing one earned run on six hits and a walk, while striking out five Explorers.

As was the case in their win on Tuesday, the AirHogs scored their runs early against a lefty Explorers starter. Simon started the game with a single up the middle against Alain Quijano (0-1) and stole second. Hunt then lined a single to right-center to score Simon and give Grand Prairie the lead.

In the third, the AirHogs got their other two tallies, with two errors on third baseman Wally Backman, Jr. helping Grand Prairie's cause. That was all Quijano allowed in a complete-game effort, giving up only two hits and a hit batter the rest of the way.

But DeBarr was able to shut down the Explorers on his end, surviving an unearned run in the fifth and a pinch-hit RBI single in the seventh from Adrian Martinez. With pinch-runner Mike Murphy on first, he broke when Bistagne took a pitch at the plate, enabling Zane Chavez to easily start a run-down on Murphy for the second out of the inning, and DeBarr struck out Bistagne to end the game.

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