Cats Cut Down AirHogs
Fort Worth Cats righty Derek Blacksher started his outing on Monday night with strike one to the Grand Prairie AirHogs' David Espinosa. On his next pitch, the AirHogs' second baseman hit his first home run of the year into the rightfield bleachers to put Blacksher in a quick 1-0 hole. After a strikeout of David Thomas, Cesar Nicolas and Greg Porter singled, and the AirHogs looked to have Blacksher on the ropes. But the righty wriggled out of trouble with a pop-up and a groundout, and absolutely dominated the next seven innings as the Cats beat the AirHogs 6-1 at LaGrave Field.
John Brownell (5-1) hit Cory Morales to start the bottom of the first, and Travis Metcalf then singled. After a wild pitch and a strikeout, Trent Lockwood's grounder tied the game, and Kelley Gulledge's single gave the Cats (14-16) all the offense they would need.
Gulledge struck again with a two-run homer on a hanging breaking ball in the third, and Fort Worth added single runs in the seventh and eighth, but Blacksher (2-4) did not need them.
The righty, who had a complete-game, 12-strikeout, near-no-hitter in his last start at home, allowed a two-out walk in the second and a two-out double to Espinosa in the fifth, but that was it for AirHogs baserunners in the rest of the game. Blacksher struck out 10, including the heart of the Grand Prairie lineup in the sixth, while Matt Sartor pitched a perfect ninth inning to finish the AirHogs (20-10) off.
