Suns' Schmidt slams Delmarva

July 27, 2004

The Hagerstown Suns ended their five-game skid in dramatic fashion Monday, rallying for seven runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to edge the Delmarva Shorebirds 10-9 before 2,232 fans at Municipal Stadium.

Jason Schmidt capped the rally with a two-out grand slam off Delmarva reliever Marino Salas (2-3) to give the Suns (11-20, 39-59) a 10-8 lead.

Brian Wilson (2-4) allowed one run in 2 1/3 innings of relief of starter Mike Musgrave for the win. Tim Alvarez gave up one run in the ninth, but earned his 20th save this season.

The Shorebirds built a 7-3 lead against Musgrave, who lasted 5 2/3 innings, scoring three runs in both the first and fourth innings. Dustin Yount's two-run homer put Delmarva up 6-3 in the fourth.

The Suns trailed 8-3 going into the bottom of the eighth, in which they sent 10 batters to the plate.

Jason Columbus led off with a double against reliever Josh Potter to ignite the rally and scored on Mike Wagner's single. Wagner went to second on Jonathan Armitage's single and scored on Tim Hutting's one-out single to make it 8-5.

Swanson followed with a single to plate Armitage from second, and Salas took over for Potter. After Jay Knowlton drew a walk to load the bases, Pat Dobson lined out to right, bringing Schmidt to the plate with two outs. Schmidt's shot to right - his sixth homer of the year - cleared the bases.

Hutting finished with three of Hagerstown's 15 hits, while Schmidt, Columbus, Wagner and Armitage each had two.

Mike Russell went 3-for-5 with two RBI and Yount was 2-for-3 with three RBI for Delmarva.

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