Brownell Goes to 3-0 as AirHogs Roll 5-3
The Grand Prairie AirHogs kept rolling Saturday night, beating the Shreveport-Bossier Captains 5-3 for their fourth straight win and a clinch of their fourth straight series win in front of 2,380 fans at QuikTrip Park.
The AirHogs (10-5) began the attack in the first, with David Thomas , Cesar Nicolas and Greg Porter singling with one out in the first to load the bases. Captains starter Aaron Cunningham (1-2) then threw eight of the next nine pitches out of the strike zone to John Alonso and Tyler Henley, giving Grand Prairie the lead. The red-hot Jake Taylor then hit a sac fly to make it 3-0 before Cunningham was able to get out of the inning.
Shreveport-Bossier (9-7) got one back in the second on Palmer Karr's RBI single in his first at-bat of the year, but the AirHogs responded with a David Thomas RBI in the second to go back up by three. After Andres Rodriguez's RBI single off John Brownell (3-0) in the third made it 4-2, the game had the look of Friday evening's 13-12 slugfest. But Brownell and Cunningham settled down and the game remained 4-2 into the sixth.
Brownell worked around a two-out single to complete six innings, striking out three against six hits, three walks and a hit batsman. But Cunningham was not as fortunate, as Taylor and Scott Clement doubled to start the inning to make it 5-2 and knock out the Captains' lefty.
Bo Schultz allowed a run in the seventh as Shreveport-Bossier closed to 5-3, but Bryan Sabatella was thrown out trying to advance to third on a pitch in the dirt to end the inning, and Dustin Cameron and Jon Hunton did not allow a baserunner in the eighth and ninth, with Hunton picking up his fifth save of the year.
