Grand Prairie Reporter

For the second night in a row, the Grand Prairie AirHogs' John Alonso was at the plate in a tie game with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning. For the second night in a row, he did not have to take the bat off his shoulder, following up his walk in Game 1 of the 2011 American Association Division Series by watching a 3-1 pitch from Wichita Wingnuts closer Josh Dew sail over his head back to the screen for a game-winning wild pitch, as for the second day in a row David Espinosa scored the winning run, giving the AirHogs a wild 12-11 win and a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series in front of 672 fans at QuikTrip Park.

Grand Prairie had trailed by as many as five runs before scoring seven straight to take an 11-9 lead in the seventh. But the Wingnuts rallied back with two runs in the eighth off Jon Fulton and Matt Sartor, before Jon Hunton (2-0) bailed Sartor out of a two-runner, one-out jam in the top of the ninth.

German Duran lined out to start the bottom of the ninth against Jared Simon (0-1), who was beginning his third inning of relief. Espinosa then walked, before Greg Porter just missed a game-winning home run to left, settling for a double that put Espinosa at third with one out. After Wichita elected to intentionally walk Cesar Nicolas, manager Kevin Hooper brought in Dew to face Alonso, who took a ball, a strike and another ball before Dew fired one high to end the game.

For the second straight game, Wichita struck first, getting a leadoff double in the first by Jimmy Mojica, before a sacrifice bunt and a two-out single by Carlos Rivera made it 1-0. Another leadoff double in the second led to another Wingnuts run, as Alonso could not handle Greg Porter's throw on Mojica's two-out bunt. After Grand Prairie starter Tim Brown worked a perfect third, Mitch Einertson had another leadoff hit to begin the fourth, scoring on Josh Workman's RBI double to make it 3-0.

The AirHogs rallied next, after going down with the minimum nine batters against Wingnuts starter Derek Blacksher in the first three frames. But four straight hits from Stephen Douglas, Duran, Espinosa and Porter put the AirHogs on the board in the bottom of the fourth, and after Nicolas grounded into a double play to bring home a second run, Alonso hit his second homer of the series - both coming to right field - to give Grand Prairie a 4-3 lead.

But that lead was short-lived, as Mojica led off the fifth with a single, Juan Richardson walked with one out, and Rivera lined a three-run homer just over the right-field wall to give the Wingnuts a 6-4 advantage. Brown was chased after a pair of one-out singles in the sixth, before Lance Janke gave up two singles and a walk and Bo Schultz allowed a sac fly for Rivera's fifth RBI, which put the score at 9-4 Wichita.

Duran, Espinosa and Porter knocked out Blacksher with consecutive hits to start the bottom of the sixth while plating a run, and former AirHog Geivy Garcia hit Nicolas to load the bases, before getting out Alonso but surrendering a two-run double to David Thomas, cutting the AirHogs' deficit to 9-7.