The Altoona Curve split a doubleheader with Binghampton last night, losing the first game, 2-1 while winning the second, 4-3.
Trailing 2-0 with two on in the bottom of the seventh of the first game (both games were scheduled to be seven innings long), the Curve endured a 45-minute rain delay. On the first pitch upon the game’s resumption, Altoona’s Jerrick Suiter blasted what would have been a three-run walkoff home run, but former Curve outfielder Barrett Barnes made a leaping catch to rob Suiter of the homer. The Curve’s Jason Delay hit a sacrifice fly to score one runner but Bralin Jackson grounded out to end the game.
In the nightcap, Jackson went 2-for-3 and Mitchell Tolman was 3-for-4 and the Curve and Rumble Ponies each scored a run in the 8th. Gift Ngoepe, returning to the Pirates organization yesterday and assigned to the Curve, started the 9th inning as the placed runner at second base. Tolman’s bunt single put Ngoepe at third, and he scored on Chris Sharpe’s chopper into right, which bounced over the head of the Ponies’ second baseman. Jesus Liriano (1-0) got his first win of the season by pitching a scoreless 9th, and he made an outstanding play to cut down Binghampton’s placed runner at third on a bunt.
Curve All-Star James Marvel (8-5, 3.21) starts the series finale tonight against Binghamton right-hander Austin McGeorge.
