FROM THE ALTOONA CURVE:
Wild Finish Sees Curve Pick Up Saturday Win
Henry Davis retrieves a wild pitch to record the final out at home in the win.
CURVE, Pa. – With the game-tying run at third base and two outs, Tyler Samaniego fired a wild pitch that allowed Joe Naranjo to break towards the plate, but Altoona catcher Henry Davis chased down the errant pitch and delivered a strike to Samaniego at the plate to record the final out of the contest as Altoona defeated Akron, 5-4, on Saturday evening at Peoples Natural Gas Field.
Matt Fraizer slugged three doubles in the contest for the Curve. His RBI-double off Akron starter Jaime Arias in the fourth to score Andres Alvarez brought home the first run of the ball game. He followed it with another RBI-double in the fifth off reliever Jordan Jones to score the Curve’s fourth run. Alvarez finished the day 2-for-4 with an RBI-single in the at-bat prior to Fraizer’s fifth inning at-bat.
Lolo Sanchez hit his third home run of the season, a solo shot in the seventh inning off Jones to provide the critical insurance run for Altoona. Liover Peguero went 1-for-5 in the win for the Curve, adding an RBI-single in the fourth inning.
Kyle Nicolas earned the win on the mound for Altoona, allowing one run on six hits in 5.0 innings. Bryan Lavastida poked an RBI-single off Nicolas in the fifth inning to mark the lone blemish in the Curve starter’s line. Nicolas struck out five batters in the win.
Brad Case started the sixth inning for the Curve but gave up two runs in 0.2 innings before Tahnaj Thomas recorded the final out of the frame. Thomas allowed a run in two innings of relief, walking Connor Kokx before Oliver Garcia allowed an RBI-single in the eighth to Angel Martinez to score Kokx.
Samaniego earned his second save of the season in the win, working around the pair of base runners in the ninth inning to get Altoona back to .500 on the season at 15-15.
Altoona concludes its series with the Akron RubberDucks, Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians, on Sunday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. Akron will send LHP Joey Cantillo to the mound with Altoona starting RHP Justin Meis.
