Ninth-Inning Rally Gives AirHogs Series Lead
Moments after their closer, the 2011 American Association relief pitcher of the year, Jon Hunton, gave up two runs to the Wichita Wingnuts, breaking a 1-1 tie in Game 1 of the American Association Division Series on Thursday night, the Grand Prairie AirHogs were staring down the barrel of Josh Dew's gun. The Wichita closer had a miniscule 1.13 ERA with 20 saves this season, and he made short work of Chris McMurray and Danny Figueroa for the first two outs.
But Stephen Douglas roped a double to right to extend the inning, and German Duran's two-strike bloop just got over Jimmy Mojica at second base to put Grand Prairie to within one. Up came David Espinosa, who fell behind 0-2, took a ball and fouled the next pitch off before drilling a fly ball to deep right just over the outstretched glove of Josh Workman for a game-tying triple.
Dew then intentionally walked Greg Porter and unintentionally walked Cesar Nicolas, before throwing the first pitch in the dirt to John Alonso. After talking to manager Kevin Hooper and Wingnuts trainer Jeremy Langer, Dew left the game, and Kendy Batista was left with the bases-loaded, two-out jam and a 1-0count to Alonso.
It did not take long for Batista to end the contest, missing with all three of his pitches to issue the game-ending free pass to give the AirHogs a dramatic 4-3 win in front of 672 fans at QuikTrip Park, earning the AirHogs the 1-0 edge in the best-of-five series.
The problems for Hunton (1-0) and Dew (0-1) came after a great pitchers' duel between Jason Jennings of Grand Prairie and Junior Guerra for Wichita. Jennings pitched eight innings of one-run ball, allowing a run on an RBI grounder by Juan Richardson in the third inning and pitching out of jams in the first, second, seventh and eighth. Jennings struck out six and walked two, allowing seven hits.
Guerra went 6 2/3 innings, and worked around baserunners in every one of his frames - with the lone run he gave up being a solo home run to Alonso in the fourth inning. Guerra struck out four and walked three, and also allowed seven hits. His bullpen backed him up in the seventh and eighth, as Jared Simon, Eric Gilliland and Matt Nevarez stranded four AirHogs baserunners by picking up the next four outs, including a first-and-third, one-out jam in the eighth.
