Birmingham Drops Intense Pitching Duel to Mississippi in Game 5
As the season has gone on the pitching for the Birmingham Barons has been less than consistent. The Barons hurlers in Game 5 turned the tides on what the staff is capable of doing. The Barons pitched a stellar contest in which they only allowed one run and four hits.
As the season has gone on the pitching for the Birmingham Barons has been less than consistent. The Barons hurlers in Game 5 turned the tides on what the staff is capable of doing. The Barons pitched a stellar contest in which they only allowed one run and four hits. The Mississippi Braves offense mustered up one run on a wild pitch to take down the Barons 1-0. Birmingham may have lost the close affair; however, the pitching staff took a huge step in Game 5.
Starting the game from the bump for the Barons was LHP Tommy Sommer. The southpaw pitched a total of 5.0 innings and didn’t allow a hit until his final inning of work. The Braves, however, were not as stingy with their pitching as Alsander Womack collected his first hit of the game in the third inning.
Womack ended the night with two hits, which accounted for half of the Barons total hits on the night with four.
A couple innings later, the Barons starter entered the fifth innings with a no-no still on the board. The fifth started with Sommer’s sixth walk of the game, but it doesn’t matter how batters the left-hander walked he was dominant on the mound. Sommer conceded his first hit of the game one batter later, however got out of the inning with no damage done to the scoreboard.
In any pitcher's duel, there comes a time where each team starts to wonder if their starter can go the distance or if they need the bullpen to finish what they started. The Barons opted to lean towards the latter as LHP Haylen Green took the mound in the sixth.
Green throughout his 1.2 IP was near flawless as he walked two and struck out three. The 25-year-old captured two outs in the seventh inning but needed aid from RHP Yoelvin Silven to escape the inning as the Braves offense was threatening the 0-0 tie.
Even with the Braves struggling to get any sort of offense going, the Barons caught the same bug. Chris Shaw in the bottom of the second inning mustered up the third hit of the game in a single.
Silven pitched a total of 1.0 innings, where he allowed two hits and one fatal earned run.
The right-hander had to be relieved of his duties in the midst of the eighth inning by RHP Caleb Freeman. Freeman came in with two runners in scoring position for the Braves and would only add pressure with walking the first batter he faced. The Barons were one out away from taking the scoreless game to the ninth, but as fate would have it a wild pitch from Freeman would score a run for the Braves.
Freeman was not charged with the earned run as he inherited the base runner from Silven.
Birmingham headed into the bottom of the ninth inning with one opportunity left to scrap together any sort of offense. Xavier Fernandez would start the inning with a base-knock, only two batters later for the Barons to be sat down on a game-ending double play.
Birmingham’s pitching was the star of the contest, but the offense did not reward them for their outstanding performance. The Barons will look to emulate their pitching dominance in the series finale against the Braves as they send RHP Chase Solesky to the bump, as well as getting back on track from the batter's box.