EL1 Altoona Curve

Altoona Curve Game Information: June 25, 2014

Published on June 25, 2014 under Eastern League (EL1)
Altoona Curve News Release


ABOUT YESTERDAY: A trio of home runs by the New Britain Rock Cats downed the Curve, 5-2, on Tuesday night at New Britain Stadium. Despite garnering an early, 1-0, lead thanks to a double play ball off the bat of Ralph Hen- riquez that scored Willy Garcia, the Curve offense remained stagnant most of the evening. New Britain answered with the next four runs in the game off starter Pat Ludwig (0-2) and all four came on homers. Henriquez drove in Garcia once again in the seventh to cut the deficit to two before the Rock Cats added another run. Ludwig allowed a total of four runs in five innings in his second Double-A start (third appearance). Garcia finished the game 3-for-4 and scored both runs in the loss. Kelson Brown also chipped in with his first multi-hit game of the season.

CURVE/ROCK CATS SERIES: Altoona and New Britain continue their series with game three of the three game set. After this series, the two teams will meet again in Connecticut from July 21-23 and for the final time in the 2014 season from August 22-24 at Peoples Natural Gas Field. The Curve are 57-45 against the Twins' Double-A affiliate all-time.

FOR ALTOONA: Starting in the series finale for the Curve on Wednesday will be RHP Joan Montero, who will be facing the Rock Cats for the first time this season. Last time out, Montero made the spot start in the second game of the doubleheader Friday night in Portland and took the loss. In 3.2 innings, Montero matched a career-high with five walks in his 3.2 innings while permitting three runs on six hits. This will be his third overall start of the season after spending a majority of the first part of the season in the bullpen. With the promotions of Nick Kingham and A.J. Mor- ris to Triple-A, Montero has been added to the rotation. For more on Montero, see page two.

FOR NEW BRITAIN: 'Cats manager Jeff Smith sends LHP Taylor Rogers to the bump in the series finale Wednesday afternoon at New Britain Stadium. The Colorado native will be making his 15th start of the season and his ninth overall at home this season. In his most recent start, Rogers allowed five runs (one earned) on nine hits in 6.2 innings in a no decision. Two starts ago, however, Rogers tossed a complete game (nine innings) and only allowed two runs while throwing only 106 pitches. He's been superb since the calendar flipped to May, going 6-1 with a 2.72 ERA in 66 innings of work. Rogers was an 11th round pick out of Kentucky in the 2012 MLB draft.

BIG WILLY STYLE: Curve OF Willy Garcia registered a three-hit day in the loss on Tuesday and has had decent suc- cess during this extended trip away from Altoona. This month, the Santo Domingo, D.R. native is batting .276 with four doubles, three homers and nine RBI in 17 games. Of Garcia's 54 hits in 2014, 28 have gone for extra bases.

I THINK THIS MIGHT BE SOME KIND OF A RECORD...: OF Willy Garcia racked up a pair of outfield assists in the first game of Saturday night's twinbill with Portland to run his season total to 12. That mark is six shy of the franchise-record for outfield assists set by Starling Marte (18) back in 2011. Last season, Garcia led the Florida State League with 20 and set the Marauders franchise-record with that total.

DID YOU REMEMBER TO FILL UP THE GAS TANK?: The Curve will wrap up their longest road trip of the season with finale in New Britain this afternoon. So far on the trip, the Curve are 3-6 in the nine games that count in the date range. It's part of an overall stretch where the Curve are playing a plethora of games away from home (14-of-18) before going into a seven-game homestand in early July. The Curve do return home this Thursday for a brief four-game series with the Binghamton Mets before heading back out to Bowie for a four-game set.

I AM TITANIUM: Curve catcher Elias Diaz is enjoying a breakout season in 2014 as he continues to play well both offensively and defensively. At the plate, Diaz is hitting .303 in 56 games as the Curve's everyday catcher this season to go along with four homers and 28 RBI. Behind the dish, Diaz has committed just three miscues this season and has shown a decent arm when throwing out potential base stealers. In five games on this road trip, Diaz is 8-for-22 (.364) with a homer and three RBI.

THE TREBLEMAKERS: As a result of the benches clearing incident on Wednesday night in Manchester, Keon Broxton, Jarek Cunningham and Gift Ngoepe were all ejected from the game. Each of them plus Andy Vasquez and Yao-Hsun Yang received three game suspensions from the Eastern League. All members have now served their sus- pensions and are active for today's series finale in New Britain.

NUMBER ONE STUNNA: Adrian Sampson once again tossed seven innings on Sunday afternoon and racked up his fifth win of the season to tie him for the team lead with the departed A.J. Morris. Sampson, who has been the team's most consistent starter in 2014, gave up four runs in his seven innings of work on Sunday (which tied a season high) but he was able to pick up the win regardless. Sampson's ERA took a bit of a hit in the game, rising to 2.39, but is still second in the league behind Portland's Henry Owens.

THE HIGH NOTES: The Curve pitching staff has done a nice job all season long of keeping the ball from leaving the ballpark. Entering play today, the Curve pitching staff has allowed 40 home runs in 649.0 innings so far this season. That's second-fewest in the league only to Portland's 33.

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