Connecticut escaped Niles with a win and avoided being swept by the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, posting a 7-4 win at Eastwood Field.  The Tigers strung together good things in a row during a couple of different innings.  The Tigers got three hits from Curt Casali, including a monstrous home run, and a couple of doubles from Colin Kaline in the win.  The Scrappers kept battling back, but ultimately dug a hole too deep to climb out of.

“Our goal is to win the series and we went for a sweep tonight”, commented Scrappers Manager David Wallace.  “Both teams played hard and we just made one more mistake than they did.  They capitalized on it like good teams do.”

For the Scrappers, Jordan Smith (below) stayed hot collecting a couple more hits and knocking in the first two Scrapper runs.  Smith extended his hitting streak to eleven games with the hits.

Wallace talked about Smith and the productivity he has been putting out.  “Jordan has put together good at-bats for us all year.  He works hard and prepares himself.  He doesn’t try to do too much, but when the situation calls for it, he opens it up a little bit and lets it fly.  When he gets down in a two-strike count, he is one of the best at battling and getting the barrel on the ball.”

The Scrappers scored a pair of runs in the first when KC Serna and Tony Wolters consecutively walked on four pitches each.  After both runners moved up a bag, Smith laced a single for the 2-0 Scrappers lead.

Scrappers starter Will Roberts, making his first start of the year pitched two innings.  The decision was premeditated by the coaching staff to give Roberts two innings or roughly 40 pitches in his debut.  Danny Jimenez relieved Roberts to start the third and took the tough loss, exiting the game down only one run.

In the sixth inning, the Tigers got back-to-back doubles from Zach Maggard and Kaline to take a 3-2 lead.  In the bottom half of the inning, the Scrappers reclaimed the lead Evan Frazar singled to knock in Jake Lowery and then Cody Elliott drew a base on balls with the sacks full forcing home Alex Lavisky to go ahead 4-3.

The Scrappers lost the lead when PJ Polk laid down a perfect bunt up the first base line that was errantly thrown into right field.  Jason King then doubled to knock in two with a bases-loaded double.  Jason Holm then hit a sacrifice fly to right to put the Tigers in front 6-4.  They would add a run in the ninth.  New Scrapper Henry Dunn was giving chase to a ball that was hit to the right-center field wall.  Dunn had a nasty collision with the fence and stayed down for a minute but eventually popped up and stayed in the game.  Eugenio Suarez ended up with a triple on the great effort by Dunn.  Suarez would trot in on a sac fly by King to give the Tigers a 7-4 lead.

The Scrappers hit the road for a three-game set with Jamestown.  Bryson Myles is almost ready to return from a pulled hamstring injury that has kept him out of action all week.   Aaron Siliga, who rolled an ankle, should also be ready to roll within the next couple of days.