Stars walk off with win

By Aaron Morse

Martin Maldonado singled home the game-winner and the Huntsville Stars (16-13) scored four in the bottom of the ninth inning to defeat the West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx by a final score of 6-5 Friday night.

The Stars struck first in the game as they got two unearned runs off Diamond Jaxx starter Steve Bray in the bottom of the second. An error allowed Taylor Green to reach to lead things off. After Chris Errecart singled the runners were bunted over 90 feet by Andy Machado. Brent Brewer, who has been quite effective when he makes contact, singled home Green but Errecart was thrown out by left fielder Carlos Peguero in jarring collision at the plate. Brewer went to second on the throw and was singled home by Maldonado.

But after that the Stars’ bats went silent. They went down 1-2-3 in every inning except the 5th (when Maldonado drew a walk) from that inning on…until the fateful 9th.

Meanwhile the Diamond Jaxx were doing what they do best: hit the long ball. In the top of the third Carlos Triunfel homered to left off Stars starter Alex Periard. That was followed by a Carlos Peguero double. One out later Johan Limonta drew a walk. With two away, Alex Liddi showed why he’s the Diamond Jaxx’s RBI leader with a ringing double to score Peguero. After a visit to the mound from pitching coach John Curtis, Periard was able to get Dustin Ackley to roll a pitch over. The only problem was that it found a space in the infield on the right side where Machado had to dive to stop the ball. Ackley was safe at first with an infield single and Limonta scored.

Before you could say “here we go again” the Diamond Jaxx had a 3-2 lead.

They’d tack on one more in the fourth thanks to a Peguero bomb into the trees and one more in the sixth when Luis Oliveros hit one to the next county.

Periard went 6 innings, gave up 8 hits, 5 runs, all earned, walked 2 and struck out 3.

Mike Jones (1-1) entered in the seventh inning and pitched three frames of shut-out ball.

The Diamond Jaxx, nursing a 5-2 lead brought former first round pick Josh Fields in to get the save in the 9th inning. But things didn’t go exactly as planned.

Lee Haydel drew a lead-off walk and promptly stole second base. One out later Zelous Wheeler hit a shot down the third base line that landed barely fair for a double to drive in Haydel. That prompted a protest from Diamond Jaxx manager Tim Laker, who thought the ball had landed foul. More to come about that in a second.

Taylor Green busted out of his recent slump with a ringing double down the right field line to score Wheeler.

Then things got wacky. Chris Errecart hit a line drive down the first base line that appeared to land foul. He actually paused and turned around to go back to the plate, but saw the home plate umpire Chris Segal point “fair”, and so he took off running. Meanwhile, everyone on the Diamond Jaxx had stopped pursuing the ball because they assumed it was foul. By the time they realized it’d actually been called fair Errecart was standing on third base with a RBI triple.

Laker promptly got ejected from the game as he was absolutely incensed with the call.

Just like that the game was tied at 5. Two intentional walks later, the bases were loaded with only one down and Maldonado lined his shot to right off reliever Anthony Varvaro to win the game.

“I was looking for a fastball, because that guy throws hard, 91-97,” Maldonado said. “So I was looking for something to drive.”

It was the second walk-off hit of Maldonado’s professional career. He had one last year in Brevard County.

Jones got the win in relief while Fields picked up the loss.

With the Smokies losing today, the Stars are now three games back in the Northern Division.

The Stars are back in action Saturday evening with a 6:00pm Central Time first pitch on WTKI and http://www.huntsvillestars.com. Tune in at 5:45 for the Window World Pre-Game report. Mark Rogers (1-2, 4.95) is on the mound for the Stars.