MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com – Drillers Stadium, Tulsa, Oklahoma – Wil
Ortiz (2) cracked the Travs' third home run of the night to break a tie
game in the ninth inning sending the club to a 5-4 victory Tuesday
night. All five Travs runs came on homers with Chris Pettit (6) and
Brian Stavisky (15) each going deep. In sending the Drillers to their
fourth straight loss, the Travs clinch the season series with a 17-12
record against Tulsa. After being held to three base hits over six
innings, the Travs did most of their hitting in the final three innings
with five runs on seven hits.
Amalio
Diaz gave the Travs six strong innings on the mound after struggling in
his last two outings. Although he allowed eight base hits, Diaz walked
no batters and struck out three in a no-decision.
Diaz
held off Tulsa until the fourth inning when the Drillers managed four
consecutive base hits to take the lead. With one out Jeff Kindle and
Daniel Carte singled in front of Justin Nelson. He shot a liner into
center to score Kindel while Carte held at third base and Nelson got
caught between first and second. A long rundown ensued and Carte scored
for a 2-0 Tulsa lead.
The
Travs initially had trouble with Driller starting pitcher Chaz Roe, who
held them to three base hits over six innings. Stavisky began the
seventh inning with a bunt single followed by a single from Ben
Johnson, who finished 3-for-4. Mark Trumbo laid down a sacrifice to
move the tying runs to second and third. Ortiz grounded to third base
and Stavisky was thrown out attempting to score for the second
out. Pettit followed with a blast to left field driving in three runs
to give the Travs their first lead since Saturday.
One
inning after bunting for a single, Stavisky ripped an eighth-inning
solo shot into the wind and over the fence in deep right-center giving
the Travs a 4-2 lead. The long ball was Stavisky's 15th with the Travelers and 20th overall to establish a new career high.
Fernando
Rodriguez relieved for a scoreless bottom of the seventh and returned
for the eighth. Tony Blanco blooped a leadoff single and Bobby
Magallanes decided to bring in left-hander Barrett Browning. The
Drillers answered with consecutive one-out base hits as Carte singled
and Nelson doubled off the right-field wall cutting the Travs lead to
4-3. Rafael Rodriguez was summoned from the bullpen and the infield
played back as Tulsa third baseman Gary Cates grounded out to shortstop
to score the tying run.
Ortiz
was the first batter of the ninth inning and faced Tulsa's all-star
righty Ryan Mattheus. With the count full, Ortiz pulled a high drive
over the left-field wall to push the Travs back on top 5-4.
The
Drillers got the tying run on base to start the ninth inning when Ortiz
mishandled Brian Esposito's ground ball. Ortiz made up for the error on
the next two plays as he caught a high throw for a force play at second
base when Ben Johnson picked up Eric Young's bunt. When Ortiz dove to
his left on a sharp grounder from Chris Nelson and threw him out from
his knees. With the tying run at second base, Nate Sutton made a
leaping catch off Blanco's slicing liner to end the game.
Time of game was 2:39 and the paid attendance was 5,083.
Box Score: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=l_sco&lid=109
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 10:23AM 
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