Good Pitching Get AirHogs Series Win
The Grand Prairie AirHogs continued their success in 2011 at CommunityAmerica Ballpark and against the Central Division of the American Association, as Stephen Douglas, David Espinosa and John Alonso all homered to lead the AirHogs to an 8-3 win over the Kansas City T-Bones on Thursday, taking three of four in the series.
After Trent Lare (3-4) retired the first 10 AirHogs hitters, Douglas pulled a 1-0 pitch down the rightfield line, just over the wall and just inside the foul pole, for his second home run of the year and his first with Grand Prairie (53-30) to break the scoreless tie.
Six pitches later, Espinosa pulled a full-count offering over the leftfield wall to make it 2-0, and after a Kala Ka'aihue solo homer in the bottom of the fourth, Espinosa's two-run single with the bases loaded in the next inning gave the AirHogs a 4-0 advantage.
Professional debutant Frank Abbl worked around a first-and-third, no-out jam in the first inning, and two walks in the second, before Ka'aihue's homer in the fourth became his first professional run allowed and snapped the AirHogs' 22-inning shutout streak.
The rookie from Northwood (Texas) University then walked two more in the fifth and was pulled with one out for Bo Schultz (3-3). The righty threw 80 pitches and finished with one run allowed on three hits and five walks with no strikeouts.
Schultz worked 2 2/3 innings and allowed one more run, but Grand Prairie got four more runs in the sixth to put things away.
Alonso homered after Cesar Nicolas reached on an error starting that frame to make it 6-1, and Douglas had a two-run infield single on the 11th pitch of his at-bat with new reliever Drew Graham.
Kyle Gunderson went the final two innings as Kansas City (39-44) got its final run on Aharon Eggleston's two-out, eighth-inning solo shot. But Gunderson came back to strike out three of the final four batters to end things.
