Friday, September 3, 2010

Stars’ play-off hopes on life support after loss to Montgomery

By Aaron Morse

The Huntsville Stars (32-33, 65-70) rallied from two runs down to tie the game in the seventh, but some bad defense and some bad luck cost them in the eighth as they fell to the Montgomery Biscuits (33-33, 71-63) by a final score of 6-3 Thursday night.

With the defeat, Huntsville finds themselves four games out of the Wild Card race with only five games remaining in the regular season. They must win the remainder of their games and the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx must lose the remainder of their games in order for Huntsville to make the play-offs.

The Stars jumped out to the early lead in the second inning, but it would not last long. Drew T. Anderson lined a single into right field to start things off. After Chris Nowak was hit by a pitch, Taylor Green crushed a ball to deep right field. Unfortunately it was not quite deep enough as John Matulia reeled it in on the warning track. On the play Anderson advanced to third. That’s when Andy Machado delivered a clutch single up the middle to make the score 1-0. Huntsville nearly got another run when Lee Haydel hit a liner to right; Nowak tried to score on the play and Matulia threw him out to end the inning.

The Biscuits came roaring back in the bottom of the frame. Matulia led-off with a triple to right. One out later, Matt Fields delivered a sacrifice fly to center. Caleb Gindl’s throw barely was not in time as Matulia slid around the tag of Anderson De La Rosa. Stars’ starter Amaury Rivas had some uncharacteristic control problems in the game, and they were on full display in the second as he hit Matt Spring and Shawn O’Malley to put runners on first and second with two outs. Rashad Eldridge singled up the middle to drive in the second run of the inning.

Huntsville trailed 3-1 until the seventh inning when Nowak was hit by yet another pitch. Green found a hole on the right side as he singled. But it appeared the rally might be stunted when a sacrifice bunt attempt ended up getting Nowak thrown out at third base. De La Rosa made sure that was not the case as he singled to left to drive in Green and cut the Biscuits’ lead to one. Brett Lawrie beat out an infield single to drive in the second run of the inning and knot the game at three.

Reliever Robert Hinton ran into some bad luck in the eighth. After Matt Spring singled to start the inning, the Biscuits tried to bunt him over. The ball went to first baseman Chris Nowak who fired to Machado covering second. It deflected off his glove and into shallow right field, putting runners at first and second with nobody out. An intentional walk loaded the bases, and one out later things got interesting. Hinton and the Stars clearly felt he was getting squeezed with Jose Ruiz at the plate. Ruiz eventually walked to drive in the go-ahead run. Then Henry Wrigley hit a grounder to Green who threw home to try and get the lead runner. But the home plate umpire ruled that De La Rosa’s foot came off the plate and another run was in. Once again the Stars were displeased with the call. Yet another walk drove in the third run of the inning. Hinton was visibly upset as he shouted at the home plate umpire. Chris Nowak must have said something wrong over at first because the first base umpire ejected him from the game. A ground-out ended the inning but the damage was done as the Stars found themselves down 6-3.

They were unable to push across any runs in the ninth despite a Brett Lawrie two-out triple as they dropped the rubber match in the series.

Huntsville returns to “The Joe” for five must-win games against Mobile starting Friday night at 7:00 p.m. central time. Wily Peralta (1-3, 4.10 ERA) will be on the mound. You can catch all the action on www.huntsvillestars.com.

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