Winless No More! Curve Sink Sea Dogs, 5-3

CURVE, PA.– The city of Altoona breathed a sigh of relief as the Curve etched a “1” in the win column, downing Portland 5-3 on Friday night at Peoples Natural Gas Field in front of 4,243 home fans.

The Curve drew first blood for the fifth time this season as Altoona posted a run in the first via three walks and a hit. Mitch Jebb, Keiner Delgado and Titus Dumitru all drew walks as Callan Moss drove in the game’s first run with a base hit to left. Moss notched his fourth RBI of the year as Jebb came around to score after his leadoff walk.

RHP Po-Yu Chen made his third start of the season. He retired seven straight batters before allowing a pair of solo homers in the third and fourth innings. He tossed four innings and yielded just two runs on two hits, both of which were solo homers. It was Chen’s longest outing of the season, and he struck out four and issued three walks.

Trailing 2-1, Altoona rallied to take the lead in the fifth with the top of the order leading the charge again. Jebb led off the inning with a bunt single then stole second base. Moss knocked Jebb home again with his second hit of the night for his second RBI. It was the first multi-RBI game for Moss and his third multi-hit game of his Double-A career. Moss advanced to second on the throw home, and he was rewarded for his heads-up base running as Omar Alfonzo plated him to take a 3-2 lead on a ground ball through the hole.

Pipkin surrendered a run in the sixth that tied the game at three, but it did not take long for the Curve to answer with two of their own to retake the lead. Three consecutive one-out walks from Shawn Ross, Jesus Castillo and Javier Rivas set up Jebb for a bases loaded single to left to make it 4-3 Curve. Delgado followed with a sacrifice fly that scored Castillo and boosted the lead to two runs for Altoona.

The Curve’s trio of arms out of the bullpen helped preserve the lead as Dominic Pipkin, Jarod Bayless and Emmanuel Chapman combined for five innings of one-run relief. Pipkin tossed the fifth and sixth and earned the win, Bayless pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth and Chapman shut the door with the three-out save.

Altoona will play the penultimate game of the series against Portland at 4:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon at Peoples Natural Gas Field. Altoona will send LHP Dominic Perachi to the mound to face Portland’s RHP John Holobetz.

With the five runs scored in the game, Curve fans can get 50% off a regular menu priced pizza at Papa John’s on Saturday with the promo code CURVE50.

For tickets and more information on the Altoona Curve, visit AltoonaCurve.com, call 877.99.CURVE or stop by the PNG Field box office. Additionally, the Stockyard Team Store is open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., during every home game and online 24/7/365.