Swift
summation
Even with a protracted wait to perk up
and without the services of the two radiant Ryans, the patient Pawtucket Red
Sox found a way to end Brandon Duckworth’s winless skid.
When Duckworth threw his final pitch
against the Indianapolis Indians in the sixth inning Thursday night, he and his
mates were nursing a 3-2 deficit. But a three-run outburst in the home half at
the expense of Indians’ reliever Duke Welker amounted to an eventual 5-3
victory at McCoy Stadium.
In addition to giving Duckworth his
first winning decision in four starts and 23 days, the PawSox garnered
themselves their third five-game winning streak of the season. What’s more, the
I.L. North leaders are assured the better part of the ongoing four-game wishbone
with the I.L. West-leading Indians.
Those developments cast no disturbances
on the horizon to start the night as the omission of both Ryan Kalish and Ryan
Lavarnway from the PawSox batting order at first appeared a dubious decision on
the part of manager Arnie Beyeler. Rehabbing Indianapolis starter Jeff Karstens
smoothly plowed through four-plus innings while his mates nibbled at Duckworth.
Back-to-back doubles via the
heavy-hitting Jeff Clement and Yamaico Navarro drew first blood in favor of the
Indians with no outs in the second inning.
One inning later, Chase d’Arnaud
augmented the lead to 2-0 upon singling to centerfield, stealing second and
advancing to third on catcher Mike Rivera’s error, then scoring via Gorkys
Hernandez’s sacrifice grounder.
With his own sacrifice in the fifth, a
straightaway flyout to Che-Hsuan Lin, d’Arnaud brought home Jake Fox for a 3-0
Indians edge.
Meanwhile, after leadoff man Pedro
Ciriaco singled to lead off the bottom of the first, 12 consecutive PawSox
were retired, beginning with Ciriaco’s foiled stealing attempt. They finally
mustered another baserunner in the fifth with Josh Kroeger’s one-out double to
right.
But Alex Hassan wasted no time following
up with a rolling single to center, scoring Kroeger to whittle the deficit down
to 3-1. Karstens was simultaneously injured and replaced by Welker, a
development beyond everyone’s control that nonetheless equaled the turning
point of the evening.
Welker’s first two challengers, Nate
Spears and Mike Rivera, singled in succession with Rivera’s base hit sending
Hassan home from second, reducing Indianapolis’ lead to 3-2.
Kroeger came up again in the sixth with
Lars Anderson and Mauro Gomez on board and dropped his eighth home run of the
season over the right-field to usurp a 5-3 lead for Pawtucket.
The defense propped up that lead by
bailing reliever Clayton Mortensen out of a pair of shaky relief innings with two
double-plays. Mark Melancon only needed seven pitches in the ninth to stamp his
11th save of the season.
PawSox
pluses
Spelling Lavarnway behind the plate,
Rivera recompensed his throwing error with his second straight multi-hit game
and fourth in 15 total appearances with the PawSox this season.
A similar performance by Kroeger, who is
now 3-for-3 with each hit going for extra bases in this series, made it easy to
forget that the DH also struck out twice on Thursday.
Sox
stains
Batting 0-for-4, Lin was Pawtucket’s
only batter who failed to reach safely at any point in the game. His final
at-bat saw him grounds out to second base in the seventh when Jonathan Hee and
Rivera both in scoring position and both unable to advance on any sort of
sacrifice.
Indians
notes
Centerfielder Starling Marte struck out
in each of his three encounters with Duckworth.
Following Welker’s botched effort to
hold up Kerstens’ victory, Evan Meek and Jose Diaz each threw a scoreless
inning of relief in the seventh and eighth, respectively.
Hernandez was caught stealing in the top
of the first with Duckworth throwing to Hee at his second-base post.
Miscellany
Sent down from Boston earlier this week,
Daniel Bard will toe the rubber for the series finale on Friday, countering Indianapolis
southpaw Jeff Locke.
