EL1 Altoona Curve

Altoona Curve Game Information: April 23, 2014

Published on April 23, 2014 under Eastern League (EL1)
Altoona Curve News Release


ABOUT YESTERDAY: Altoona continued to dominate the Harrisburg Senators in the second game of the four-game series with a 7-0 win Tuesday night at Peoples Natural Gas Field. The Curve continued the trend of scoring against the Senators in the first inning when Alen Hanson led off the inning with a bunt single and scored all the way from first when Gift Ngoepe clocked an RBI double to right. After a three-run third that was highlighted by a two-run single by Mel Rojas, Jr., the Curve took a 4-0 lead. In the fourth, Hanson led off with his third triple of the year and scored on Ngoepe's sacrifice fly. Immediately following the scoring play, Stetson Allie smashed his third home run of the season over the right field wall. The Curve added one more in the sixth to back a phenomenal pitching day by Adrian Sampson who went six shutout innings to earn his third win of the year.

CURVE/SENATORS SERIES: Tonight's game marks the fifth meeting between Harrisburg and Altoona with the Curve leading the season series 3-1. Last week, Altoona played only two games against the Nationals' Double-A affiliate, squandering a two run lead and losing 4-3 last Monday and winning 5-2 on Wednesday. Last Tuesday's game was postponed due to inclement weather and rescheduled for July 12th in Harrisburg. All told, the Curve and Senators will meet 14 times this season with seven games played at Peoples Natural Gas Field and seven at Metro Bank Park. Altoona holds the all-time record against Harrisburg with a 151-128 record including 81 wins in 131 games in Curve, Pa.

FOR ALTOONA: The Curve will send the Eastern League ERA leader to the bump in RHP Nick Kingham in game three of the series against the Senators. Kingham this season is 1-1 with a 0.53 ERA in three starts. In Kingham's last start at home against the Richmond Flying Squirrels, he took a tough-luck loss after allowing a pair of unearned runs over five innings. For more on Kingham, see page two.

FOR HARRISBURG: Robert Gilliam is scheduled to start tonight for the Senators. This season, the 26-year-old is 0-0 with a 5.63 ERA in three games (two starts). Gilliam last appeared on April 18 in Reading and tossed two hitless innings in relief. In his last start at home against the Fightin Phils, the Chapel Hill native tossed five innings and allowed two runs on four hits with three strikeouts.

SAMPS-OWNED: Last night, Adrian Sampson put up his third quality start of the season by shutting out the Senators through six innings and limiting them to only four hits en route to his third win of the season. Sampson has now tossed 12.1 consecutive scoreless innings which is the most on the team this season. In the process, the 22-year-old saw his ERA lower to 1.13 which ranks third in the Eastern League. Sampson also continued to show excellent com- mand of his pitches by striking out seven Senators hitters and walking only one. The seven strikeouts by Sampson tied his career high.

PEDAL TO THE METAL: The Curve have put up 28 total hits in the last two games against the Senators with 14 hits on Monday and Tuesday night. After beginning the series with the lowest team batting average in the entire league, the Curve are now hitting .244 which ranks eighth in the Eastern League. In this series, the Curve scored 17 runs including a season-high ten Monday night.

ELIAS SPORTS BUREAU: Despite an 0-for-4 game last night, Curve catcher Elias Diaz has rocketed out of the gate in 2014. Through his first 11 games, Diaz is batting .429 with three doubles and six RBI to go along with a pair of walks and just four strikeouts. He's hit safely in nine of his 12 games played and he's also thrown out seven of 20 basestealers (35%) from behind the plate. Entering play yesterday, Diaz ranked at the top of the Eastern League but now stands in second place behind Portland's Mookie Betts.

BETTER CALL, PAUL(INO): On Monday, Carlos Paulino was transferred to the Altoona Curve roster from Triple-A Indianapolis. The catcher was batting .207 with the Indianapolis Indians through ten games. Last year, Paulino was a mainstay behind the plate, playing in 99 games before a late season promotion to Triple-A. With the Curve last year, Paulino drove in 38 runs and was also behind the plate when Altoona no-hit the New Hampshire Fisher Cats on July 25 on the road. Paulino was acquired by the Pirates on March 30, 2011 in a trade with the Florida Marlins in exchange for infielder Jim Negrych.

MR. WONDERFUL(S): Two members of the starting rotation rank among the league leaders in ERA. Nick Kingham has the best ERA (0.53) of any pitcher in the league and Adrian Sampson's 1.17 ERA (3rd) round out the Curve starters in the top-3 in ERA.

Tyler Sample (1.50 ERA) was among the league leaders but the right hander thrown 12 innings this year, one inning shy of qualifying among the league leaders. As a whole, Altoona's pitch- ing staff ranks atop the league in ERA (2.54). Curve starting pitchers have been consistent through the first three weeks of the season, holding a 2.25 ERA and the bullpen has a 2.93 ERA.

"WILLY" CONTINUE?: Outfielder Willy Garcia struggled to begin the season but has hit safely in seven straight games and ten of his last 11 games including. After his game Monday night, the right fielder saw his batting average climb to the .200 mark for the first time this season and it cur- rently stands at .207 after a 1-for-3 day last night. Defensively, Garcia led the entire Pirates minor league system and Florida State League in outfield assists last season, throwing out 20 runners. He found his first outfield assist of the 2014 season on Friday night, gunning down Eric Sim trying to go first to third.

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