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SL1 Mississippi Braves

Stars Get Two in Ninth to Take Game One

August 3, 2007 - Southern League (SL1)
Mississippi Braves News Release


Mississippi and Huntsville battled to a 1-1 tie through eight innings Friday night, but the 4,621 fans in attendance watched Huntsville take game one of this five-game series, 3-1. The Stars got two runs in the top of the ninth off of Braves reliever Jose Ascanio to hand the Braves their second straight loss.

James Parr struggled with his control all night as he issued five walks and totaled 50 pitches through the first two innings. Parr saw a runner reach third in four of his six innings, but surrendered only one run, a run he walked home. Huntsville got on the board in the second as two consecutive walks forced in Brendan Katin, who led off the inning with a single, to give Huntsville an early 1-0 lead.

Parr's struggles continued in the third when Adam Heether led off with a double. Heether moved to third on a flyout to center, but Parr was saved when Matt Young caught a line drive by Brendan Katin and threw Heether out at home.

The Braves' bats got going in the fourth. Huntsville starter Corey Thurman had held the Braves to one hit through his first three innings, but gave up singles to Diory Hernandez and Carl Loadenthal to start the fourth. With runners at the corners, Isaiah Ka'aihue hit a sac fly to center that plated Hernandez with the Braves first run and tied the score at one.

Parr's defense bailed him out once again in the fifth. Hernan Iribarren led off with a triple and a walk to Steve Sollman put runners at the corners with one out for Stars' clean-up man, Heether. With Sollman running on the pitch, Heether smoked a liner to center that was right at Loadenthal. He tossed to first to double off Sollman to end the inning and get the M-Braves out of yet another jam.

The wheels came off for the Braves in the top of the ninth. Reliever Jose Ascanio walked Steve Moss to start the inning and he moved to second on a sac bunt by Alcides Escobar. Moss moved to third on a single by Mel Stocker and scored on a single by Iribarren. Stocker then scored on a single by Ryan Crew and when Ascanio hit Steve Sollman, the bases were loaded with only one out. Another great play by Matt Young in left kept Huntsville from scoring again, but the damage had been done as the Stars held a 3-1 lead heading to the bottom of the ninth.

Thurman left the game after the sixth having allowed one run on four hits while fanning seven. Parr gave way to Michael Nix after six innings as well. He struggled for the most part, but battled through to allow only one run on five hits and a season-high five walks. Neither starter factored into the decision.

Nix threw two scoreless innings before handing the game over to Jose Ascanio. Ascanio gave up two runs on three hits in his inning of work and fell to 2-2 on the year.

Robert Hinton took over in the seventh for the Stars and threw two scoreless while Luis Pena threw a shutout ninth to earn his sixth save of the season.

The M-Braves take on the Huntsville Stars in game two of this five-game series tomorrow night at Trustmark Park at 7:05. Mississippi is scheduled to send righty Ryan Baerlocher (0-0, 7.50) to the hill in his second AA outing while Huntsville will counter with lefty Derek Miller (3-0, 3.23) who's looking to stay undefeated on the year. After fans received Chipper Jones statues on Friday night, the first 1,500 through the gate on Saturday will receive an Andruw Jones statue.

Braves Bites:

* Carl Loadenthal stole his team-record 36th bag of the year ... He's second in the league in that category. * Diory Hernandez reached bases safely in each of his first three at-bats ... He went 3-4 with three singles and scored a run. * Michael Nix extended his streak of no earned runs to 19.0 innings.

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