Two errors in ninth prove costly in 6-5 loss to Barons Monday
BIRMINGHAM, ALA. (JUNE 9, 2014) - The Birmingham Barons (28-37) scored an unearned run thanks to two Jackson errors in the ninth and walked-off against the Generals (28-36) 6-5 Monday at Regions Field. Despite the loss, the Generals took three of five from the Barons and are 6-3 so far during the month of June. The Generals dropped to 3-8 in one-run affairs this season and it was the third walk-off given up this season.
Trayce Thompson reached on an error by Patrick Kivlehan (2x4, RBI, BB) to begin the bottom of the ninth. He advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Chris Curley to put him in scoring position. After an intentional walk to Michael Early, pitcher Cam Hobson (4-5, 3.26) was set to face Rangel Ravelo. Ravelo hit a sharp ground ball up the middle, but Ketel Marte (0x4, 2 RBI) reached it and made a nice flip to Nate Melendres (2x4, R) for the force at second. As Melendres attempted to turn the double play at first, he bobbled the ball and allowed Thompson, who never stopped running, to score the winning run.
Four Generals had multi-hit games including Ji-Man Choi (2x4, R, 2 RBI, BB) who performed well with two hits in his first game back with Jackson. Kivlehan, Melendres and Leon Landry (2x4, R) joined him with two hits each.
Choi proved he was happy to be back in the Generals lineup as he doubled in his first at-bat to score Jamal Austin (1x5, R) and Dan Paolini (1x5, R). The two-RBI hit gave Jackson a 2-0 lead after the top of the first.
Birmingham, however, came right back to tie the game in the second. Josh Richmond collected his first triple of the season and it scored Kevan Smith from first. Richmond scored on a ground out by Jaime Pedroza and the game was tied 2-2.
The Barons took the lead an inning later with back-to-back doubles from Curley and Earley. Earley's ground-rule doubled scored Curley and Thompson and the score was 4-2 Birmingham.
Melendres doubled to lead off the fourth for Jackson, moved to third on a single from Landry and scored on Marte sacrifice fly to make the score 4-3.
Birmingham got that run back in the next half inning. Thompson hit the Barons's second triple of the game and Jeremy Ferrell scored from second and lead was again two runs at 5-3.
Landry picked up an RBI triple of his own in the sixth to score Melendres and the Birmingham lead was again cut to just one run. The Generals tied the score an inning later with an RBI double from Kivlehan to score Choi for the first time this season and it was 5-5 after seven innings.
Hobson, who came in to relieve starter Trent Miller (4-6, 4.91), picked up the loss. It was a tough loss for Hobson who only gave up the one unearned run in 4.2 innings of work. Miller struggled in 4.0 innings as he gave up five runs on six hits.
Cody Winiarski (2-1, 3.82) earned the win throwing 2.0 scoreless innings out of the bullpen for the Barons.
The Generals will have their first true off day since April 29th on Tuesday before they begin their final series of the first half with Miguel Tejada, Rafael Furcal and the Jacksonville Suns Wednesday at The Ballpark in Jackson. The Generals will look to have Tyler Olson (2-2, 4.46) on the mound as Jose Urena (6-3, 4.22) is expected to start for the Suns. The game will be at 7:05 pm and can be heard on 96.5 ESPN, TuneIn Radio and jacksongeneralsbaseball.com.