On a night when his performance earned it for him the most, Ross Ohlendorf ended his five-start winless skid and garnered his first victory since April 21 as the Pawtucket Red Sox held off the Toledo Mud Hens, 4-1, at McCoy Stadium Thursday night.
Ohlendorf threw a season-high 97 pitches
over six scoreless innings, his first scoreless outing since his debut with the
team April 10 versus Lehigh Valley. He allowed only three hits and one walk
while striking out six and throwing three 1-2-3 stanzas.
In between, while facing an equally
tricky Toledo left in Adam Wilk, the Sox whittled off two runs worth of support
for their pitcher.
Nate Spears drew first blood on
Pawtucket’s first hit of the night, slugging a solo shot to right field in the
bottom of the second. Two innings later, Ryan Lavarnway augmented the lead to
2-0 by lacing a leadoff double to left, advancing to third on Lars Anderson’s
sacrifice grounder and scoring via Mauro Gomez’s single.
The Mud Hens finally got a man past
second base and tacked a run on the scoreboard once Clayton Mortensen took over
the mound. With two outs in the seventh, Audy Ciriaco rolled a single into
left, far enough for Ryan Strieby to score from second.
Mortensen went on to walk the bases
loaded, but was bailed out with the 2-1 lead intact when Ben Guez flied out to
centerfielder Ronald Bermudez.
Toledo’s first reliever, Rob Waite, was
less fortunate in the bottom half. Tony Thomas reached first base on a fielding
error, stole second, advanced to third on Bermudez’s sacrifice grounder, then
scored ahead of Pedro Ciriaco’s base hit to make it 3-1.
The PawSox reaped one additional dose of
insurance out of Waite in the eighth as Alex Hassan singled to center, scoring
Lavarnway from second base. Waite promptly gave way to Darin Downs after that.
On the other side of the ball, pitching
the eighth and ninth innings, respectively, Will Inman and Mark Melancon
yielded nothing beyond a walk apiece. With the off day Wednesday, Melancon was
able to save his second straight PawSox victory.
PawSox
pluses
Ohlendorf bent, but didn’t break in his final
inning of work. He was facing the troublesome top of Toledo’s batting order,
which constituted all of the baserunners he authorized on the night, and
surrendered his first extra-base hit to Guez. But he left Guez stranded on
second base by getting top slugger and designated hitter Brad Eldred to whiff
on a payoff pitch.
That would be Eldred’s second K in three
bouts with Ohlendorf, who then sat down and turned things over to the bullpen.
Gomez hit 2-for-3 against Wilk and
joined Anderson and Hassan as the only three PawSox batters not brook a
strikeout from the Mud Hens’ southpaw starter.
Sox
stains
All things considered, the only
reprehensible actions on the part of any PawSox players was Mortensen spilling
the shutout bid and Spears’ fielding error at third base that helped to prolong
Mortensen’s drama in the seventh. In other words, it was all quite trivial at
night’s end.
Mud
Hens notes
Former Sox infielder Brent Dlugach was
reactivated from the seven-day disabled list and batted ninth while attending
second base for the Mud Hens in his first visit to McCoy since his offseason
transfer.
And apart from his attire and the dugout
he sat in, Dlugach didn’t look much different to the McCoy masses when it came
to facing Ohlendorf. He struck out in each of his first two plate appearances.
Like Ohlendorf, Wilk lasted an even six
innings, striking out seven but allowing two extra baserunners and two extra
runs.
Miscellany
Bermudez was promoted from Double-A
Portland earlier in the day for his Triple-A debut in the 2012 season. He
started in centerfield and batted ninth in the PawSox order. Bermudez spent the
bulk of the 2011 campaign in Pawtucket, putting in 57 appearances.
Ohlendorf was beaned by Matt Young’s
line drive in the top of the first, allowing an infield hit to constitute the
night’s first baserunner. Momentarily sore, Ohlendorf remained in the game.
Lavarnway’s fourth-inning double was his
fourth two-bagger in his last seven games played. Gomez’s double nudged him
into the team lead with 12 on the year, one more than Anderson and Josh Kroeger.
The PawSox will send Justin Germano out
to counter Toledo’s Jacob Turner in Part II of this series Friday night.
