Senators Steal Friday Night Game, 6-5

CURVE, PA – Trailing 6-2 entering the bottom of the tenth inning, Altoona rallied for three runs and had the tying run at third when Harrisburg turned a game-ending double play in a 6-5 defeat for the Curve on Friday night at Peoples Natural Gas Field. With the win, Harrisburg secured a series victory in the three-game set that will wrap up on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.

Mitch Jebb started the bottom of the tenth inning with a triple to left-center field that scored Mike Jarvis. Jebb, who picked up two hits and drove in a pair, scored in the next at-bat when Titus Dumitru grounded out to shortstop. With the Curve trailing 6-4 and one out in the inning, Duce Gourson and Keiner Delgado drew walks to put the tying run aboard. Derek Berg singled home Gourson with a line drive through the right side of the infield, however, Will Taylor grounded into a game-ending double play with Delgado on third base.

Harrisburg earned a 2-0 lead in the second inning on a sacrifice fly from Cortland Lawson and scored a second run on a balk. The two runs were the only blemishes on the line of Connor Wietgrefe who tossed 4.2 innings in his season debut. Wietgrefe struck out three and maneuvered around three walks on 76 pitches.

Altoona’s offense picked up their first run on an RBI single from Jebb in the fifth inning and drew even on a wild pitch thrown by Harrisburg reliever Sandy Gaston in the eighth inning.

Peyton Stumbo held the line as the first reliever following Wietgrefe and tossed 3.1 scoreless franes. Stumbo made his Double-A debut on Friday night and struck out three and allowed just two hits and one walk. Emmanuel Chapman suffered the loss in relief, surrendering run-scoring hits to Cayden Wallace and Brandon Boissiere in the tenth inning. Brandon Neeck struck out the only batter he faced in relief.

Taylor and Jebb each recorded their first multi-hit games of the season in the loss. Gourson earned three walks, stole a base and scored two runs.

Altoona wrap up their three-game set with Harrisburg on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. RHP Po-Yu Chen will take the ball for Altoona with RHP Kyle Luckham slated to start for the Senators.

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.