Mike Minor wound up, brought the ball upward, and unfurled his first pitch for a strike against Yolbert Sanchez. From there, Minor would continue to mow down hapless Birmingham Barons as he dominated his 45 pitch outing and left the crowd buzzing.
“He’s going to go 45 or 50 pitches, depending on how he’s going,” manager Jose Moreno said the night before.
“We’re going to piggyback after that, so we’ll just go with the guy who was supposed to start. It won’t be any problem.”
Or at least that’s how the fans probably expected it to go. Instead, the former MLB all star All-Star plunked Sanchez on the next pitch and proceeded to implode. At the end of his rehab assignment, Minor’s final line read 1.2 innings pitched, five hits allowed, six earned runs, one walk, and one strikeout. The Lookouts dropped the game 9-6.
AT&T park sounded like a rhythm section of Walker Valley’s band in the top of the first. Outfielder Craig Dedelow popped a ball over the centerfield wall to bring Sanchez home, and then Lenyn Sosa lined a ball over the infield to drive in Jose Rodriguez. A smattering of boos could be heard as Minor trudged back to the mound.
Luis Curbelo mashed a ball over the wall on the fifth pitch he saw. On his way home, the slugger pounded his chest repeatedly as he hyped up his teammates (and possibly himself) who waited for him at home plate. By the end of an inning, a shelled and battered Minor shuffled to the dugout.
Minor went back out for another inning and was able to get a couple of more outs after giving up a single to Sanchez. At that point, Minor hit his pitch-limit and got pulled for Andy Fisher.
In the bottom of the fourth, Matt McClain stepped up to the batter’s box and went to battle against Davis Martin. The righthander took two outside pitches and one strike before he got the pitch he could handle. With one powerful swing of the bat, McClain sent the baseball over the wall for the third home run in four innings.
Lookout relievers were slightly better than Minor, but still allowed a Tyler Nelsony home run and a bases loaded walk to Yolbert Sanchez in the top of the fifth. Fisher went a little over two innings before giving way to Julio Pinto. Then came a wild Timpanelli, who struck out two, walked three, gave up a hit, loaded the bases, but somehow came away unscathed through it all.
Outside of McClain’s highlight play, the Lookout bats were silent through most of the night. Barons starter Davis Martin threw five innings, and aside from the home run, gave up only one additional hit, walked none, and struck out five.
Even when things did go right, like when Byrd Tenerowicz’s easy popup single got botched in shallow right-field, it was immediately undone by the Barons. The runner Francisco Urbaez got gunned down after Jagger Rusconi rifled the ball into second-baseman Rodriguez. That seventh inning miscue was just another lowlight on a night filled with them.
The Baron’s pitcher Caleb Freeman proceeded to inexplicably implode. He walked two batters, to load the bases, and then gave up a mammoth grand slam over the right field wall to Matt Lloyd. Freeman’s ERA ballooned from 2.00 to 37.80, which “bested” Minor and his 32.40 ERA.
Mark Kolozsvary grounded into an RBI in the bottom of the ninth, but the Lookouts could not overcome their early-game blunders as the Barons took the win minutes before a storm descended upon the city.
You can contact the author of this article via email at joseph.a.dycus@gmail.com or on twitter @joseph_dycus .
BOX SCORE:
BIRMINGHAM 601 020 000. – 0-0-0
CHATTANOOGA 000 100 000 - 0-0-0
Martin, Olson (6), Freeman (7), Henzman (7), Cronin (9) and Fernandez; Minor, Fisher (2), Pinto (5), Timpanelli (6) Nutof (8) and Kolozsvary
WP: Martin
LP: Minor