Zhang Solid, But Miscue Dooms Day for AirHogs, 6-2
The Texas AirHogs got another great start from Zhang Tao today but could not get enough offense to take the game from Sioux Falls. Zhang Tao pitched five innings of five run baseball, but only two were earned. On the other side of things for Sioux Falls, Taylor Hill worked seven innings of one run, four hit ball, keeping the AirHogs bats at bay for most of the game.
The scoring started early for the Canaries as Adrian Nieto homered to left with two outs in the first inning to put the Birds on top 1-0. Clint Coulter then doubled, before Alay Lago singled to make it 2-0.
The AirHogs had an answer though in the bottom of the inning. Batting with two outs, Jonathan Moroney singled to center and then advanced on an error by Centerfielder Brett Vertigan. Then a passed ball allowed Moroney to reach third, when he realized the pitcher Hill wasn’t watching home he made a mad dash towards the plate. Moroney won that foot race and put the AirHogs on the board.
The Canaries really broke it open in the second inning. Tao had gotten two outs in the inning but had runners on first and second. Mitch Glasser hit a ball to deep left that bounced off Stewart Ijames’ glove and brought home two runs. Glasser eventually came around on a Nieto double to make it 5-1.
And the score stayed that way until the bottom of the 8th mostly in large part to a great bullpen outing from Liu Guoqing. He worked 4 innings of one run baseball out of the bullpen.
In the bottom of the eight with two men on Moroney singled deep off the left field wall but the ball hung up so long that Li Ning could not advance more than one base, allowing only Josh Prince to score and cut the lead to 5-2.
In the ninth the Canaries added one more run via a longball from Clint Coulter to bring us to our final of 6-2.
Tomorrow’s series finale will start at 11:05 and feature a matchup between RHP Zech Lemond for the AirHogs and RHP Sam Bragg for the Canaries.
Individual tickets for the 2019 season are on sale now. Visit AirHogsBaseball.com for more information. For the latest news, follow the team on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @TXAirHogs. Media inquiries:tcostello@texasairhogs.com cell: 346.303.1522.
