The Altoona Curve came from behind again on Wednesday night against Akron at Blair County Ballpark.
After Ben Francisco crashed a solo home run for the Aeros with one out in the top of the second inning, Curve pitching took over and Altoona staged a comeback of their own for a 5-1 win.
Ian Snell, on short rations because the Pirate organization wishes to have him pitch against Erie in Saturday’s game to be played at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, went just the opening two innings. Snell gave up two hits, including Francisco’s dinger in the second, with one strikeout and no walks, then gave way to Patrick O’Brien.
O’Brien, a right-hander, who was the Pirates’ 39th round selection in the June 1999 draft out of Walsh Jesuit High School in suburban Akron, Ohio was added to the Curve roster from Lynchburg to pitch on Wednesday. He is taking classes at Notre Dame, having completed three and 1/2 years as an undergrad. O’Brien was 3-3 with an ERA of 4.28 in 16 games (10 starts) at Lynchburg.
Following Snell to the mound, O’Brien (1-0) pitched four innings of scoreless one-hit ball to pick up the win in his first outing at the Double-A level. He walked one and struck out one, retiring the first 10 batters he faced.
“I’m happy to be able to help,” O’Brien said. “I was just trying to pitch like I did (at Lynchburg), keep the hitters off balance.”
O’Brien replaced Jason Alcala on the Curve roster after Alcala also picked up a win in his first Double-A performance against Akron on Tuesday. Alcala was sent to High-A Lynchburg to make room for O’Brien.
“It’s good to see that you have guys below that you know can come up and pitch at this level,” said Curve manager Tony Beasley. “It is very encouraging.”
Neil McDade pitched the final three innings for the Curve, allowing no runs and no hits with one walk to pick up his first save of the season.
While the Akron offense was being shut down by Snell, O’Brien and McDade, limited to just three hits, the Altoona bats thundered.
Shaun Skrehot, just back for the fifth year as a Curve, beat out a bunt hit to begin the third and moved up a base on a passed ball and scored on a single by hot-hitting Jeff Keppinger to tie the score.
In the fifth, the Curve moved into the lead for good. Chris Duffy was hit by a pitch to begin the home half of the inning, moved up to second on a groundout by Keppinger, whose two-for-five actually DROPPED his batting average to .405. With two outs, Curve cleanup hitter Josh Bonifay ripped a two run home run to put Altoona in front 3-1. Bonifay now has a team-leading 12 homers and 48 RBI, moving one dinger ahead of Yurendell DeCaster (11) and two ahead of Ray Sadler (10).
Sadler didn’t stay two homers behind for long though, smashing his 11th of the year an inning later with one out and the bases empty to push the lead to 4-1.
Dan Denhem tossed the first seven innings in his first Double-A star for Akron and didn’t pitch too badly yielding four runs on seven hits, with one K and three walks.
Oscar Alvarez took over for Denhem in the eighth and the Curve broke through for their final tally of the game. Duffy led off with an infield hit and Keppinger followed with another infield hit. Nate McLouth laid a perfect bunt down the third base line to load the bases on three straight hits that never left the infield. Alvarez got Bonifay to strike out, but Ryan Doumit hit a sacrifice fly deep enough to left to score the speedy Duffy from third base. Ronnie Paulino was safe on the Aeros only error of the game, but Alvarez got the dangerous Sadler to pop out to second. With his bunt single, McLouth now has reached base in a Curve record 28 straight games, breaking the old record of 27 set in 2002 by J. J. Davis.
“It’s kind of neat,” said McLouth. “It happened kind of on a cheap play. I guess they messed up on their bunt defense.”
