Roadrunners win in extras
August 20, 2008 - Golden Baseball League (GBL)
St. George RoadRunners News Release
ST. GEORGE - The offenses of the Golden Baseball League's two best hitting teams took Tuesday night off at Bruce Hurst Field.
Even as the pitching bended, Eddy Garabito made sure the St. George Roadrunners wouldn't break.
Garabito hit an infield single with one out in the bottom of the 10th inning that plated Greg Lemon with the winning run as the Roadrunners beat the Yuma Scorpions for the second straight time, a 2-1 decision that pulled them within a single game of first place in the Golden Baseball League's Southern Division.
Had it not been for the Herculean effort of Roadrunner starting pitcher Justin Abbott, who threw 136 pitches in eight-plus innings, victory may not have been possible.
"He said 'this is my game. I want to get it done,'" Roadrunners manager Cory Snyder aid of Abbott's effort. "He wanted it that bad, so I had to let him go out and give him a chance."
With Abbott working on 128 pitches as he entered the ninth, the inning started with a break for the Scorpions. Maikel Jova led off with an infield single, and Jose Rodriguez followed with a single to center that ended the Roadrunner starter's night.
"(Snyder) told me you threw well, but we had to go with (reliever Jason Norderum)," Abbott said of the meeting on the mound. "Jason's done the job for us all season and we wanted him in that situation."
Norderum entered the pressure-cooker, but gave up a single to Hector Bernal that scored Jova to tie the game. Norderum somehow escaped any further damage by striking out A.J. Valentine, Ryan Barba and Pete Farina to keep the score knotted at 1-1. However, Norderum was ejected by the home-plate umpire as he walked off the mound.
Yuma reliever James Garcia had a similar harrowing experience in the bottom of the frame. Like Norderum, Garcia got out of his mess by striking out Ryan Stevenson to leave two runners stranded and force extra innings.
After Roadrunner reliever Claudio Galva came in and retired the Scorpions in order in the top of the 10th, Lemon started the winning rally with a single to right. Wiki Gonzalez sacrificed and Seth Loman was intentionally walked to bring up Garabito, who hit a 2-2 pitch just out of the reach of Yuma third baseman Dionys Cesar and into short left field.
With the game scoreless in the sixth, Loman, who homered twice in Monday's 15-7 win, doubled in Gonzalez, who drew a one-out walk, to break up the pitching duel between Abbott and Yuma starter Mike Esposito.
"It was great to see our pitchers bust their butts out there. It helped our confidence, too," Loman said.
Shaky defense - errors from Angel Sanchez and Liu Rodriguez - gave the Scorpions their first threat in the third. Abbott got out of the jam by getting Yosvany Almario to pop out to Reyes at first.
The Roadrunner right-hander was solid throughout, but had to dodge another threat in the fifth. After Ryan Barba drew a walk, Abbott got Farina to pop out to Reyes, then got Dionys Cesar to fly out to Loman in right.
Notes: Neither team could get a runner past second base before Loman's double in the sixth. ... Abbott's performance lowered his ERA from 7.05 to 6.27. ... Both Orange County and Long Beach posted wins on Tuesday and the four Southern Division teams are separated by a single game. ... Monte Mansfield will start tonight's third game of the series, with the first pitch at 7:15 p.m. The game can be heard on Sports Radio 1210 and Network1sports.com.
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Golden Baseball League Stories from August 20, 2008
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