By Jarrod Prugar

For the Mirror

A Matt Gorski grand slam put the exclamation point on a 6-1 Altoona Curve victory over the Bowie Baysox Tuesday night in front of 2,474 fans at PNG Field.

“The message that we talked to the group about today was playing 27 outs,” Altoona manager Callix Crabbe. “If we play 27 outs, we’re a really good team. We smother the pitchers with good swing decisions, but overall, it was nice to be back home and, and put together a good game on both sides of the ball.”

Until Gorski roped a first-pitch fastball beyond the bleachers in left field, the game had been an old-fashioned pitcher’s duel. To Altoona’s credit, Curve hitters did enough to knock Chayce McDermott out of the game to get to the Baysox bullpen.

Curve third baseman Domingo Leyba got the scoring started with his run-scoring single before Henry Davis notched an RBI single of his own.

Leyba moved to third on Davis’ single before Davis stole second while Liover Peguero was at the plate. After Peguero’s strikeout, first baseman Mason Martin worked a four-pitch walk to load the bases for Gorski.

Gorski proceeded to launch the next pitch, a Xavier Moore fastball, a long, long way to put Altoona in cruise control.

“The guy was a little bit erratic,” Gorski said. “He was walking a couple of people, so I knew he wanted to get ahead. I was looking for a fastball first pitch, and that’s what I got.”

Walk this way

Patience was a virtue for Curve hitters Tuesday night as they combined to earn five walks against the Baysox.

Davis notched two walks while Mason Martin, Josh Palacios and Gorski all added a walk of their own.

That patience is by design actually and it was put together by hitting coach Jon Nunnally and integrated baseball performance coach Blake Butler.

“That message started last week,” Crabbe said. “Nunnally and Blake did an excellent job getting the offensive guys to realize that if we extend someone’s bullpen, it’s going to come up later in the series.”

Nicolas, bullpen shine

Coming into Tuesday’s start, Kyle Nicolas had struggled mightily in his first two starts, failing to get through the fifth inning in both.

Against Bowie, Nicolas was really strong. He scattered three hits over six innings, allowing only one run on Cody Mayo’s lead-off homer to start the sixth inning.

It was the bounce-back Nicolas was looking for after his first two outings.

“It felt really good. I kind of got in a groove after the first couple innings and just trusted my defense and everything turned out good,” Nicolas said. “It was very exciting to get a good one under my belt this year.”

The bullpen picked up right where Nicolas left off with Nick Dombkowski and Braeden Ogle combining for three shutout, hitless innings.

Meis on the mound

RHP Justin Meis gets the ball for Wednesday morning’s matinee matchup against Bowie. He went four innings, allowing four runs on five hits, two walks and four strikeouts in his last start.