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Sox pound 'Pigs for 11-4 victory

By Tim Shoemaker | Special to The Morning Call

August 27, 2008

The first four relief pitchers called upon by Lehigh Valley IronPigs manager Dave Huppert combined for 61/3 shutout innings Tuesday night against the Pawtucket Red Sox.

But Huppert did have unexpected poor performances at the beginning and the end of the game.

Starting pitcher J.A. Happ allowed eight hits and five runs in 12/3 innings and Matt Childers gave up six runs in the ninth in an 11-4 loss to the PawSox at Coca-Cola Park.

The IronPigs (53-84), last in the International League's North Division and 311/2 games behind Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, has two more home games left in its inaugural season in the Lehigh Valley.

The Pigs host Pawtucket (82-56) tonight, visit Syracuse on Thursday and Friday, and host Syracuse on Saturday before finishing the season at Pawtucket on Sunday and Monday.

Steve Green, Jason Anderson, Travis Blackley and Stephen Randolph combined to shut down Pawtucket in the middle innings, but the runs off of Happ and Childers made an otherwise close game look like a blowout.

''Happ just didn't make his pitches,'' Huppert said. ''He was throwing the ball well, but he left a few balls over the plate. They got some hits. He didn't have any luck. They found holes.''

Pawtucket starting pitcher Bartolo Colon, on a rehab assignment from the Boston Red Sox, allowed four runs and left with a 5-4 lead after three innings. The PawSox bullpen of Marcus McBeth, Beau Vaughan and Chris Smith each pitched two scoreless innings to close the game.

Pawtucket scored three times off of Happ in the first. Jeff Corsaletti doubled to center and scored on Chris Carter's single. Carter went to second on a David Ross single. Carter and Ross scored on back-to-back singles from Keith Ginter and Jeff Natale's RBI singles, the third and fourth consecutive singles in the inning.

Carter and Ross each had RBI singles in the fifth to make it 5-0.

The IronPigs rallied with four runs in the second. Casey Smith drove in Chris Snelling with a single, then leadoff hitter Brandon Watson hit a three-run home run off Colon, who had allowed no hits in his previous outing rehabbing from a lower back strain.

That 5-4 score held until the top of the ninth, when the PawSox hit Childers hard in his only inning of work. After allowing four consecutive hits to start the ninth, Gil Velazquez and Jonathan Van Every hit back-to-back home runs as Pawtucket's first six hitters of the inning scored.

''They keep battling every night,'' Huppert said. ''They've shown a lot of character all year long. They're going to battle until the end of the year.''

Tim Shoemaker is a freelance writer.