Stars blitzed by Diamond Jaxx

By Aaron Morse

It got ugly early and stayed that way for the Huntsville Stars (46-49, 13-12) in their 12-5 defeat at the hands of the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx (48-46, 9-16) Monday night.

In the second inning, Nate Tenbrink led off with an infield single off Stars’ starter Josh Butler. After Joe Dunigan walked, Carlos Triunfel tried to bunt the runners over, but Butler was able to get the lead runner at third base. Unfortunately that proved to be irrelevant as Butler walked Brandon Haveman to load the bases. That’s when Matt Lawson unloaded on a pitch up in the zone for a grand slam and his second homer in as many games.

They would pour it on from there as Butler (3-5) had his worst outing of the season, lasting only four innings, giving up 10 hits, nine runs (eight earned), as he walked three and struck-out two.

The Stars’ defense did not help matters as they made four errors in the contest. Meanwhile, the offense pounded out 13 hits, but left 12 men stranded, and was only 4-17 with men in scoring position.

The game got so ugly that the Stars brought in position players Chuck Caufield and Andy Machado to pitch. They each tossed a scoreless inning and Caufield was able to strike-out “Futures Game” participants Alex Liddi and Carlos Peguero in order.

Huntsville’s offense finally got going in the ninth inning. Back-to-back singles from Lee Haydel and Brett Lawrie started the inning. Two outs later Drew Anderson tallied his second RBI of the night as he singled home Haydel. Chris Howak followed with a RBI single of his own. Taylor Green continued his recent hot streak at the plate as he doubled home Anderson and Nowak to make the score 12-5.

That’s all the Stars would get though as Steven Hensley (7-7) picked up the win with 6.1 strong innings. Lawrie, Nowak, Haydel, and Anderson tallied multi-hit games for the Stars. Meanwhile, seven different players had multi-hit games for the Diamond Jaxx.

The teams combined for 28 hits, but the runs column was all West Tenn. The loss puts the Stars in a three-way tie for first place in the SL North with Carolina and Tennessee. They’ll look to salvage a split of the four-game set Tuesday afternoon as they send Michael Fiers to the mound in the finale. Tune in on huntsvillestars.com beginning at 12:45 p.m. central time for the Window World Pre-Game Report.