6/20 Recap - Tennessee 7, Carolina 0
The Mudcats (37-31) and Stars (37-31) will play the final game of the first half to determine the North Division champion on Sunday. Carolina, losers of three of four, will play at Tennessee at 5:00 PM, while Huntsville, losers of six straight, will open at Birmingham at 3:00 PM ET. Should a tie remain after Sunday, the tie-breaker will be the heads-up meeting in Huntsville on July 21st. Huntsville was beaten by Birmingham 8-1 on Saturday night.
Tennessee (31-38) took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second on a grounder by Mark Reed. The Smokies' run came a half-inning after Eric Eymann bounced into a triple play. Carolina's Todd Frazier and Zack Cozart singled to start the inning, but Eymann hit a one-hopper to third baseman Jonathan Mota. Mota fielded the ball alongside the base, tapped it for the first out, then threw to second, with Tony Thomas' relay beating Eymann by a step to complete the historic triple play, just the third hit into by a Mudcat in club history. Lee Mitchell softly lined into the last on July 1, 2008 at Jacksonville.
Tennessee broke the game open in the fifth inning against Dallas Buck (L, 2-2) by scoring five runs. Three singles started the inning, with a bases-loaded single by Mota scoring another run. With two outs and the bases loaded, Darwin Barney stroked a two-run single up the middle against Buck, his college teammate at Oregon State. Chris Heisey's throw to third base scooted past Jose Castro to allow a third run to score.
With the injuries piling up with Yonder Alonso on the disabled list with a broken right hamate bone suffered on Thursday, and Juan Francisco tweaking a hamstring on Friday, Zack Cozart was hit on the right hand with a pitch in the seventh inning, and was removed an inning later. Cozart's prognosis for Sunday is unclear.
Alexander Smit will be taken off the disabled list ahead of Sunday's game to start against the Smokies' Casey Lambert.