Wednesday, September 01, 2010

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PENSACOLA, Fla. – After beating the Pensacola Pelicans with five two-out runs in their playoff opener, the Shreveport-Bossier Captains scored five more in Wednesday night’s Game 2, getting clutch pitching from Osvaldo Rodriguez and four relievers to help strand eight Pelicans runners, as the Captains won 8-4 to take a big two games to none lead in the best-of-five American Association South Division Championship Series.

Rodriguez (1-0) got 5-4-3 double plays to keep the Pelicans off the board in the first two innings, but was not so fortunate in the third, when Javier Brito’s two-out single up the middle scored Carlos Leon to give Pensacola its first lead of the series. The righty settled down after that, getting perfect innings in the fourth and fifth.

Pelicans starter Jared Gothreaux (0-1) looked like he might make that lead stand up, retiring the Captains without a hit or walk or hit batsman in the first three innings. He worked around a two-out, no-one on jam in the fourth and then pitched a perfect fifth to keep the lead.

But Gothreaux suffered a rare lapse of control, walking Bryan Sabatella on four pitches leading off the sixth. After two flyouts, the Captains made Gothreaux pay for the walk. With Palmer Karr in a long battle with Gothreaux, Sabatella swiped second and went to third on catcher Lou Palmisano’s error. Karr then came through with his second, 1-2, two-out RBI hit in as many nights, lining a base hit to left to score Sabatella and tie the game.

The middle of the Captains order kept pressing, as Karr stole second, and scored on Andres Rodriguez’s hit to give the Captains a 2-1 lead. Then, Jorge Alvarez made it a three-run game by crushing his first postseason homer to left to emphatically cap the four-run, two-out rally.

Rodriguez gave up three hits around a flyout in the sixth, and Captains manager Ricky VanAsselberg decided to go to his bullpen with the bases loaded and one out. Justin Young came on and got a soft flare to second by Dallas Christison for the second out, with Dan Griffin coming on next and getting Kyle Brown on a shallow fly ball to left.

Robert Perry got another two-out RBI as he drove in Jovanny Rosario with a base hit off Ron Hill in the seventh to make it 5-1, but Pensacola came back with three off Griffin in their half of the inning to make it 5-4. With a runner at first and two outs, VanAsselberg summoned Jameson Maj, and he got a pop-up from Marcos Rodriguez to end the inning.

Maj then pitched a perfect eighth inning with the help of a sliding catch by Rosario in center, before the Captains got three in the ninth to get some breathing room for Hector Carrasco, who pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to send the series to Shreveport with the Captains in a commanding position.

Notes: The win was the Captains 13th in a row overall and 10th in a row on the road…The Captains stole five bases in the game, including two by Sabatella…The first three hitters in Pensacola’s lineup were 6-for-14 with three RBIs, but the rest of the team was 5-for-22 with only one RBI…The Captains won the final three games they played at Pelican Park this year (including the two in this series) and finished 6-5 at Pensacola.

The Shreveport-Bossier Captains return home for Game 3 of the series, at 7:05 p.m. on Friday, September 3. Postseason tickets are on sale now at Fair Grounds Field for all possible home playoff games. All games are broadcast streaming live on ustream.tv. For information on tickets, promotions, advertising, and other opportunities with the Captains, check out the team’s Web site at www.sbcaptains.com, or call the Fair Grounds Field office at (318) 636-5555.

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