Sports stats



Rocks Cats Defeat Harrisburg

June 23, 2009 - Eastern League (EL1)
New Britain Rock Cats News Release


New Britain, CT - Clint Everts hit Rene Tosoni with a pitch to start of the bottom of the 13th and it came back to haunt him as Tosoni scored on Matt Moses' single to right field as the Rock Cats defeated Harrisburg, 5-4.

In the final frame, Tosoni moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Juan Portes and Everts issued an intentional walk to Whit Robbins before Erik Lis singled to right field to load the bases. That set the stage for Moses to stroke a line drive to right field to knock in Tosoni for the walk-off win in extra innings.

Moses' heroics capped off a Rock Cats' comeback that saw them trailing 4-0 entering the sixth ining. The Senators jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Michael Daniel led off the inning with a double to right field off of Rock Cats starter Matthew Fox. With one out, Fox unleashed a wild pitch that allowed Daniel to move to third. He then scored on Leonrad Davis' groundout to Fox.

Harrisburg struck again in the third with another leadoff double - this time by Ricardo Nanita, who left the game with an injury after his hit. Michael Martinez came on as a pinch runner and immediately advanced to third on another wild pitch by Fox. Daniel sliced a single to center field to knock in Martinez for a 2-0 lead. Fox picked off Daniel at first base before allowing back-to-back doubles to Ian Desmond and Davis, with Desmond scoring on the second hit.

Desmond added a solo home run to start off the fifth inning.

The Rock Cats finally broke through in the bottom of the sixth. Brian Dinkelman started the inning off with a double to left field and Tosoni followed with a single to put runners on the corner. Portes followed by grounding into a double play that allowed Dinkelman to score the first Rock Cats' run of the game. Robbins continued the inning with a line drive single to center field scored on Lis' triple to center that knocked Harrisburg starting pitcher Cory VanAllen out of the game. Matt Moses came on as a pinch hitter for Danny Berg, who was just promoted to New Britain, and delivered an RBI single that brought the ‘Cats within one.

In the bottom of the seventh, Tosoni sliced a line drive to right field to knock in Danny Lehmann and tie the game, 4-4.

Fox lasted just 4 1/3 innings, surrendering 11 hits and four runs. He was picked up by his bullpen as five relievers - Jay Rainville, Kyle Waldrop, Alex Burnett, Anthony Slama, and Yohan Pino - combined 8 2/3 shutout innings. Slama tossed two scoreless innings in the ninth and tenth and Pino (2-1) fired three shutout innings in which he didn't allow a hit and struck out five.

Everts (0-1) suffered the loss for the Senators.

• Discuss this story on the Eastern League message board...

Eastern League Stories from June 23, 2009


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