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The Altoona Curve will close out the home portion of their 2007 season with an eight game homestand comprised of two four game series

Altoona will take on the:-
------------Harrisburg Senators - Thursday August 23rd to Sunday August 26th, and the
------------Reading Phillies - Monday August 27th to Thursday August 30th

The Result
Curve - 7 runs to 6

The Curve - Year-to-Date
67 wins and 63 losses

Brett's Position and the Batting Order
Did Not Start
Playing
Batting - #

---------------Entered the game during the top of the sixth innings
---------------Playing first base

Brett's at-bats
First plate appearance
Righthanded pitcher
Runner at first base - one down
......and now click on the "PLAY" button

Hit hard out into rightfield for a base hit ...... single to rightfield
Out at second base on a double play hit by the next Curve batter
Second plate appearance
Righthanded pitcher
Bottom of the eighth innings!!!
The Curve are trailing four runs to six!!!
And the tying runs are at first and second base!!!
There are none down!!!
......and now click on the "PLAY" button

Sacrifice bunt back to the mound ...... out at first base ...... the runners advanced to second and third base and into scoring position!! ...... and they eventually scored to tie up the game!!
NOTE - see the last game report below for comments by Curve Manager, Tim Leiper, on this "big bunt at the right time"

At the end of the Game
1 hit from 1 at-bat - single, 1 x sacrifice bunt

Heard during the game

Email from Brett

Game Reports

Taber Lee completed a Curve comeback with an RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning as Altoona erased a four-run deficit to defeat Harrisburg, 7-6, Saturday night at Blair County Ballpark

Lee's single capped the come-from-behind effort for the Curve, as he guided a ball to right field off of Harrisburg reliever Zechry Zinicola to score Javier Guzman with the winning run
Zinicola (0-4) took the loss after walking Guzman to open the inning and permitting a one-out single to Peter Bergeron to lead to Lee's game-winning single

Trailing 6-2 into the seventh inning, the Curve scored five unanswered runs to win for the second time in the series

Altoona plated two runs in both the seventh and eighth innings, each rally fueled by one of five errors Harrisburg commited on the night

Vic Buttler walked to open the seventh and took second on a wild pitch
He scored from there as Russ Johnson tapped a ball back to the mound that was misplayed by Senators' reliever Carlos Martinez
Johnson later scored on a sacrifice fly from Alex Fernandez to cut the lead to 6-4

Another Harrisburg error opened the door in the Curve eighth as Bergeron reached on a ball muffed by shortstop Ofilio Castro
Lee contributed the second of three singles on the night to put two aboard
After being sacrificed to second and third by Brett Roneberg, both scored on a Jason Bowers two-run single to tie the game

The Senators had blown open a tied game with four runs off of Curve starter Kip Bouknight in the sixth inning
Frank Diaz led off with a double and scored as Dan Dement singled behind him
Brandon Powell followed with a single and both runners advanced on a passed ball
Bouknight struck out Steven Mortimer, and the Curve elected to intentionally walk Sheldon Fulse to load the bases
Castro followed with an RBI single to score Dement and give Harrisburg a 4-2 lead
Luke Montz then contributed a two-run single to chase Bouknight and complete the rally

A couple of defensive lapses cost the Curve early, as the Senators plated two unearned runs in the second inning to take a 2-0 lead
Powell led off with a double that was misplayed in right field by Adam Boeve allowing Powell to advance to third
He scored from there a batter later as first baseman Jason Delaney couldn't handle a ground ball from Fulse
Fulse reached on the miscue and scored an out later on a Montz double

The Curve trimmed the lead to one as Buttler singled home Lee in the bottom of the second

Again it was a contribution from Buttler that drew the Curve even in the fourth
With two outs in the inning, Buttler singled off of Garrett Mock to score Bouknight who had reached on an error
The unearned run evened the game, 2-2

Chris Hernandez was the winner for the Curve
Hernandez (5-1) earned the victory by pitching two scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth
Hernandez has not been scored upon in eight straight appearances spanning ten innings

The series will conclude Sunday evening at Blair County Ballpark
RHP Dewon Brazelton (4-4, 3.54) will make the start for Altoona against LHP Justin Jones (0-0, 5.40) for Harrisburg

That retching sound you might have heard Saturday night wasn't your cat choking on a hairball
It was the Harrisburg Senators, playing perhaps their worst of many, many bad games this season, embarrassingly falling to the Altoona Curve 7-6 at Blair County Ballpark

Thanks to a season-high five errors by the defense and a slew of inexcusable miscues by the bullpen, Harrisburg (49-83) blew a 6-2 lead over the final three innings

The Curve (67-63) seized a two-games-to-one edge in the four-game Eastern League series when Taber Lee rapped a one-out single to score Javier Guzman in the bottom of the ninth

Harrisburg plays its final road game at 6.05PM today before traveling home for an eight-game homestand to close its season

Altoona, holding onto faint playoff hopes, wasn't much better than the Senators, committing three errors and nearly coughing up its comeback bid in the top of the ninth

The Senators, though, were simply worse on this night

Errors by Dan DeMent, Luke Montz, Carlos Martinez, Ofilio Castro and Roger Bernadina helped the Curve muster three unearned runs

Following starter Garrett Mock, relievers Martinez, Alex Morales and Zech Zinicola (0-4) combined to issue four walks, four hits and five runs over the game's final three innings
That included Zinicola's leadoff walk to pinch-hitter Javier Guzman to begin the bottom of the ninth in a tie game
Guzman eventually moved to third on Peter Bergeron's single before scoring on Lee's liner to right

In the seventh, Martinez walked the leadoff batter and committed a throwing error that led to two runs and ignited the Curve's digging out of a four-run deficit

Then a fielding error by Castro and a bunt single by Lee chased Martinez in the eighth, but Morales allowed a two-run single to Jason Bowers to blow the save

Harrisburg, which jumped on former teammate Kip Bouknight for two runs in the second and four more in the sixth, loaded the bases against Chris Hernandez (6-1) in the top of the ninth
But Steven Mortimer flew out to shallow center to strand them all

Brandon Powell led the Senators offensively by going 3-for-4 with two runs

Montz added two hits and three RBIs

Notes
Montz ended an 0-for-18 slump that dated to Aug 11 with an RBI double in the second
Mock allowed just two runs - one earned - over 5-1/3 innings
Left-hander Justin Jones will start for the Senators Sunday - he made one start earlier this season for the Senators but has otherwise spent most of the season at Class A Potomac

The Curve showed some good character, and Harrisburg showed how bad it is Saturday night
Altoona rallied from a 6-2 deficit to win a 7-6 game that was close but in no way crisp

The Senators, lugging a disastrous 49-83 record, did everything they could to lose the game before 7,318 fans at Blair County Ballpark
Harrisburg committed five errors, some the kind that make you scratch your head and wonder how these players are in Double-A

The Curve cashed in on the sloppiness with some clutch hits and won it when Taber Lee singled home Javier Guzman in the ninth inning

‘‘After getting our hearts ripped out a little bit in a tough loss Friday night, the way we come back after going down 6-2, it just shows the character of our club to come back and win a tight one like this’’ Curve manager Tim Leiper said

Altoona remains 6-1/2 games behind second-place Akron in Southern Division wild card race
Time is running out as the Curve have just 12 games remaining

‘‘Right now we just need wins, and it doesn’t really matter how we do it’’ Lee said

Guzman opened the Curve ninth with a walk and took third on a one-out, hit-and-run single by Peter Bergeron
Harrisburg brought the infield in, and Lee cracked a single to short right field for the game winner

Chris Hernandez (6-1) won in relief for Altoona, while Zechry Zinicola (0-4) took the loss

Harrisburg tagged Curve ace Kip Bouknight for six runs in 5-1/3 innings for a 6-2 lead
The Senators scored twice in the second and chased Bouknight with four in the sixth

Harrisburg’s defense began its collapse in the seventh inning to help Altoona rally
Reliever Carlos Martinez got a tapper back to the mound with Vic Buttler at second base
Buttler’s run meant nothing at the time, but instead of getting the sure out at first, Martinez threw the ball away at third trying to retire Buttler
The Curve runner came home on the play, and the batter who hit the tapper, Russ Johnson, later scored on pinch-hitter Alex Fernandez’s sacrifice fly

The most routine of groundballs was booted by Senators shortstop Ofilio Castro to open the eighth, allowing Bergeron to reach base
The Curve turned that gift into another two-run inning to tie it at 6-6

Leiper called on Brett Roneberg to sacrifice bunt with runners and first and second and no outs, and Roneberg came through
‘‘I don’t think I’ve asked him to bunt here in two years, and he comes up with a big bunt at the right time’’ Leiper said
Jason Bowers, one of the Curve’s best clutch hitters, followed with a single up the middle off Alex Morales to score Bergeron and Lee
‘‘I feel good with Bowers coming up there’’ Leiper said of the decision to bunt Roneberg to get the tying runs in scoring position

The Senators’ final mistake of the night came on a leadoff walk in the ninth inning of a tie game, which led to the decisive run

Leiper credited his club for doing the little things to put Harrisburg’s defense in tough situations
That was one part of it, but the Senators also looked more like a rookie-league team than a Double-A club defensively
‘‘We executed good plays, and to me, we kind of forced them into making errors because of our aggressive style of playing’’ Leiper said