Suns hand out one more victory

June 13, 2000|By BOB PARASILITI

Make no mistake about it, the Hagerstown Suns lost 9-5 to the Augusta GreenJackets Tuesday.

And make no mistakes, the Suns lost in the oh-too-common manner ... they made too many mistakes.

Errors - those that were counted on the scoreboard and those that weren't - were Hagerstown's downfall as the Suns handed over four runs to Augusta in the 10th inning for a 9-5 loss in front of a Businessperson's Special crowd at Municipal Stadium.

"Little errors have held us down the whole first half," Suns manager Rolando Pino said. "We fought back to tie the game and then give it back to them in the 10th inning. We have to play good fundamental baseball ... and if we do, we have a chance to win a lot of games."

This wasn't one of them. In all, the Suns made two errors that counted and three others on the house, since they couldn't be charged as miscues in the scoring summary.

Hagerstown (31-35) came back from a 5-0 deficit to force extra innings, getting the tying run when Ryan Bundy scored from second after third baseman Stephen Minus' throw on Guillermo Quiroz's grounder pulled the first baseman off the bag.

Then it was Hagerstown's turn to be generous.

Things quickly went out of the hands of reliever Justin Stine (1-3) on two swings of Kregg Jarvais bat. With one out, Jarvais popped a foul ball to the first base side that Mike Snyder misjudged the wind and let drop untouched.

Jarvais took advantage of the reprieve, singling up the middle to start the winning rally. Instead of facing Chaz Terni with no runners and two outs, Stine was challenged.

Terni singled to put runners on first and second. Lew Ford followed with a slowly hit grounder to third baseman Joe Bernhardt, who threw it past Snyder to allow both Jarvais and Terni to score.

"Stine got the groundballs for us. We didn't make the plays for him," Pino said. "This is a tough (loss). It's a fundamental thing. And with us, when we make mistakes, it's always at the wrong time and it costs us runs and then costs us games."

The Suns went down in order in the 10th as B.J. Leach, who leads the South Atlantic League in saves, came back from blowing his opportunity for his 20th save to record the win.

Augusta (36-31) took advantage of a Bernhardt error and another non-charged mistake - shortstop Brandon Jackson fell fielding a grounder - to score two runs off starter Marcos Sandoval in the first.

Down 5-0, the Suns broke loose against Augusta starter Dennis Tankersley with two runs in the fifth despite striking out nine times before the rally. Shannon Carter singled and Jackson doubled to drive in the runs.

, but the Suns were thwarted from the possibility of a big inning when Carter was thrown out making a base-running mistake.

Johnson drove in a second run to key the Suns' two-run seventh.

Today: OFF

Thursday - Capital City Bombers

Frank Graham (4-6, 4.60)

at Hagerstown Suns

Cameron Reimers (2-4, 3.80)

Promotion: Thirsty Thursday

Time: 7

Radio: WHAG 1410