Francoeur and Braves finish series sweep

May 4, 2005 - Southern League (SL1)
Huntsville Stars News Release


Brian O'Connor worked six solid innings in his first start of the season and Jeff Francoeur homered and collected three hits to carry Mississippi to a 6-2 win over Huntsville Wednesday morning and afternoon at Joe Davis Stadium. The Braves completed the three-game series sweep to improve to 10-17 and outscored the Stars 16-4 in doing so, while the home team dropped to 14-13 overall and 10-4 at home.

Gregor Blanco began the game with a single and scored one out later when Francoeur blasted a home run to center field, his fourth of the year, off of Stars' starter Dennis Sarfate. Scott Thorman followed with a single, moved to third on a Brian McCann single and scored on a base hit by Onil Joseph. Huntsville starting pitchers have yielded at least a run in the first inning in nine of the last 13 games and multiple runs in six of those nine instances.

The Stars answered with a pair of runs in their half of the first first when Vinny Rottino tripled in Callix Crabbe, who had walked, with one out and scored on a Nelson Cruz ground ball out. Cruz has knocked in at least one run in six of his last eight games and increased his season total to 20. Huntsville had scored in 20 of the 32 innings in the four-game weekend set against Tennessee and was able to score in only three of 27 frames against the Braves.

Sarfate blanked the Braves over the next six innings and matched Glenn Woolard for the longest outing by a Huntsville starter this season. The right-hander suffered the loss to fall to 2-2 after allowing three runs on eight hits. He struck out four and did not walk a batter for the second time in six starts. Josh Habel took over in the eighth and gave up run-scoring singles to Luis Hernandez and Johnathan Schuerholz, who knocked in just his second run of the season, and another run on a fielding error by Rottino.

O'Connor took the spot of the injured Blaine Boyer and earned his second win of the season after yielding just two runs on three hits. The southpaw struck out five and walked three and was followed by Ryan Bazner, Casey DeHart and Jorge Vasquez, each of whom tossed a shutout frame in relief. The three Mississippi starters in the series, Matt Coenen, Anthony Lerew and O'Connor, held the Stars to three runs on 10 hits over a combined 20 innings of work.

The Stars open a three-game series against Tennessee Thursday morning and will send left-hander Manny Parra to the hill against Smokies right-hander Tony Pena. Coverage of the game gets underway at 10:15 a.m. central time on ESPN 1450 AM and via the internet at www.huntsvillestars.com.



Southern League Stories from May 4, 2005


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central