Saints Jump on Jennings Early to Grab Series Lead
In their four-game Division Series win against Wichita, the Grand Prairie AirHogs pitchers allowed the leadoff runner to reach base 16 times in 26 innings. While the AirHogs were able to mostly get around that problem against Wichita, the St. Paul Saints were not so forgiving on Wednesday, jumping on Grand Prairie starter Jason Jennings for five runs in the first three innings, with the leadoff man reaching and scoring in all of them, winning Game 1 of the best-of-five American Association Championship Series 7-1 at Midway Stadium.
The AirHogs got a leadoff walk to Stephen Douglas to start the game, but he was stranded at third and Grand Prairie did not get another baserunner against Saints starter Todd Mathison (1-0) until the fourth inning.
Meanwhile, Jennings (0-1) allowed a single to Adam Frost to start the first, with the St. Paul second baseman swiping second before Shane Costa's RBI single put St. Paul on top. Richard Mercado singled to start the second, Jason Cooper's double sent him to third and Aharon Eggleston's sacrifice fly made it 2-0. After Jennings got Jake Krause on a foul-out, Frost had an infield single, before Costa and Ryan Patterson had two-out run-scoring hits to put Grand Prairie in a four-run hole.
A leadoff walk to Ronnie Bourquin started trouble for Grand Prairie in the third, and after a groundout and another walk, Eggleston singled to make it 5-0.
The AirHogs got their first hit when Guillermo Martinez singled to start the fourth, and David Espinosa singled behind him to give Grand Prairie a threat. But Greg Porter lined into a double play and Cesar Nicolas struck out, and the chance quickly dissipated.
In the sixth, Mathison again allowed a pair of singles to start the inning, but a Martinez flyout, Espinosa pop-out and Nicolas flyout kept the runners at second and third.
Grand Prairie finally got a run in the seventh on a double by Nicolas and a pair of fly balls, with David Thomas getting the sacrifice fly to bring in the lone AirHogs tally, but Cooper's two-run homer off Lance Janke in the bottom of the seventh saw that run and raised it one more to put the game well out of reach.
Mathison ended up going seven innings, and allowed five hits and a walk, struck out four and allowed just the lone run. Kyle Foster gave up one infield hit in his two innings of work, shutting the door on any thoughts of an AirHogs comeback.
