Smokies run away late to beat Stars

By Aaron Morse

The Huntsville Stars kept things close for awhile but the Tennessee Smokies scored nine runs in the bottom of the eighth to take control and win 16-6 Monday night.

Tennessee flexed their muscles in the second inning when Steve Clevenger homered off Stars’ starter Amaury Rivas. But Huntsville took a brief 2-1 lead in the fourth. Brett Lawrie and Zelous Wheeler started the rally with back-to-back singles. After Drew Anderson was hit by a pitch, Chris Nowak grounded in to a fielder’s choice, scoring Lawrie and tying the game. A sacrifice fly off the bat of Taylor Green gave Huntsville the lead.

It didn’t last long as a Brandon Guyer sacrifice fly tied the game in the bottom of the fourth.

Tennessee seemed to take control of the game in the bottom of the fifth. The pitcher Craig Muschko led-off with a double to center. A Tony Campana single put runners at the corners. Brett Jackson smacked a sacrifice fly to give Tennessee a 3-2 lead. That’s when Russ Canzler blasted his 17th homer of the year to extend the advantage to 5-2. Matt Spencer doubled and Steve Clevenger walked to chase Rivas from the game. New pitcher Chris Cody allowed one of his two inherited runners to score when Guyer singled up the middle to drive in Spencer. When the dust settled the score was 6-2 in favor of Tennessee.

It was not Rivas’ best outing as he went four and a third innings, giving up six runs, all earned, on nine hits. He walked two and struck-out three.

Cody was his own worst enemy in the sixth as with two away he walked two straight hitters. Spencer made him pay with a RBI single to give Tennessee a 7-2 lead.

But Brett Lawrie gave the Stars some hope in the seventh as he blasted a three-run homer to cut the deficit to two.

Unfortunately all that hope disappeared in one disastrous eighth inning. New pitcher Jim Henderson had gotten a double play ball to end the seventh, but the eighth was his undoing. Tony Campana singled to lead-off and went to second on a wild pitch. One out later Russ Canzler and Luke Sommer delivered back-to-back doubles. After an intentional walk, two more doubles and a single followed. An error by Zelous Wheeler didn’t help matters and Campana got his second hit of the inning with a RBI double. Brett Jackson singled home a run and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Canzler scored Campana. Now with two away, another Stars’ error, this time by Chris Nowak, kept the inning going and forced Mike Guerrero to bring in Chuckie Caufield to pitch. The position player got them out of it when he got Steve Clevenger to pop out. But the disastrous frame saw nine runs score, seven earned, on eight hits.

Caufield homered in the ninth, but it was too little too late. Lawrie had a good day at the plate in the loss, going 3-4 with the three-run homer. Every Smokies’ player scored a run and every player got a hit with the exception of Blake Lalli.