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From Mirror reports
RICHMOND, Va. -- Altoona's pitching staff struck out 12 batters on Sunday afternoon at The Diamond, but the Curve offense was kept quiet as Richmond defeated the Curve, 4-1, to split the series.
The one run in the contest for Altoona came with two outs in the fourth inning.
Domingo Leyba opened the inning with a double and Matt Gorski singled to move him to third. Leyba was then thrown out attempting to tag up on a flyout to right fielder Luis Matos from Mason Martin, but Drew Maggi came through for the Curve with a single up the middle to score Gorski and tie the game 1-1. The Curve stranded six runners on base and had just two hits from that point on.
In a scheduled bullpen game for Altoona on Saturday night, Matt Eckelman worked a season-high five innings of relief, keeping the Flying Squirrels bats at bay as Altoona bookended a pair of runs in the first and ninth innings to defeat Richmond, 4-2, at the Diamond.
Eckelman followed in the contest and bewildered the Flying Squirrel bats with his knuckleball/fastball approach. After working three scoreless innings, he allowed a run to Richmond in the sixth.
Eckelman allowed just that run on three his with two walks and two strikeouts in five innings as he came back out in the seventh and worked a hitless frame. Tahnaj Thomas and Tyler Samaniego each gave Altoona a scoreless frame to close out the game, with Samaniego earning his first save of the season.
Altoona returns home to PNG Field on Tuesday to take on the Akron RubberDucks, Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians.