AirHogs Survive to Beat Captains
Without three regulars in the lineup, the Grand Prairie AirHogs used a combination of small ball and long ball on Wednesday night to outlast the Shreveport-Bossier Captains 7-5 in 10 innings at Fair Grounds Field, ending a season-high-tying four-game losing streak.
Jon Hunton (5-1), who blew his third save of the year in the ninth inning, worked around a leadoff walk in the 10th to retire the Captains (32-37), getting Joe Urtuzuastegui to ground into a 5-4-3 double play to end it.
Hunton was given the lead again in the 10th on a throwing error by third baseman Andres Rodriguez on Guillermo Martinez's sacrifice bunt, which followed a leadoff single by Chris McMurray and a bunt single by Jake Taylor. Zane Chavez's sacrifice fly gave the AirHogs (43-25) their insurance run, and this time Hunton made it stand up.
In the ninth inning, David Espinosa hit a 3-2, two-out pitch from Mark Haynes (0-2) over the wall in right for his third homer of the year to give Grand Prairie a 5-4 lead, but Hunton hit Urtuzuastegui to start the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Captains hope. A sacrifice bunt and a single moved him to third with one out, and John Johnson beat out a potential game-ending double play grounder to tie the game.
The AirHogs had taken the lead in the first inning on a two-run homer by John Alonso against starter Ryan DiPietro, and answered single runs by the Captains in the first and third with runs in the third and seventh - David Thomas hitting his second home run this year off DiPietro in the seventh inning to make it 4-2.
But after Jason Jennings departed after seven strong innings, allowing one earned run on five hits and two walks while striking out eight, Jon Fulton gave up a two-out, two-strike, two-run home run to Palmer Karr in the eighth inning to tie the game.
