Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski Curve starter Aaron Shortridge throws his glove back as he avoids a hard grounder from Reading's Casey Martin in the second inning.

By Jarrod Prugar

For the Mirror

The Reading Fightin’ Phils used four home runs to catapult them to a 8-2 victory over the Altoona Curve Wednesday afternoon in front of 4,527 people at PNG Field.

It was an uncharacteristic outing for Curve starter Aaron Shortridge who yielded three home runs in the loss.

“I think his command wasn’t as sharp as it had been in his previous outings,” Altoona manager Callix Crabbe said. “I think the sliders are landing in the zone and there was one where he didn’t throw it with his typical intent.”

Shortridge allowed five runs on six hits while only striking out one on the day, though he was able to go 5ª innings to give some length to a bullpen that was used heavily on Tuesday.

Omar Cruz took over in the sixth and went 2• innings though he allowed three runs on what was a challenging afternoon for Altoona.

“The earlier games, not to make an excuse, sometimes can be challenging,” Crabbe said. “Obviously, I think as pros, we still need to come out and try to compete, but we just didn’t have our best stuff today.”

Finding the positive

Some of the few bright spots for the Curve Wednesday came off the bats of left fielder Matt Fraizer and second baseman Claudio Finol.

Fraizer was 2-for-5 on the afternoon with an RBI single in the third inning that plated Finol for the first run of the game for Altoona.

“He’s been trending up. He’s been having really quality at bats,” Crabbe said. “He’s definitely not an easy out. He is not trying to do a ton of damage and it’s leading to a lot of success and his path looks much improved from what it was at the beginning of this season.”

Finol scored both runs for the Curve, his second coming on a ninth inning home run, his third of the season.

“Claudio, he doesn’t get to play a ton, but when he comes in, he always puts together good at bats,” Crabbe said. “He’s such a good teammate. He’s a guy that you root for and I’ve been running him out there more because he just deserving of it.”

Offensive woes

Altoona scattered nine hits against Reading Wednesday, all of which were singles aside from Finol’s homer.

It was a far from ideal day at the plate for the Curve who went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position and threatened to score only in the third inning before being neutralized for most of the game.

“I think when you fall down early 3-0, you feel like your back is against the wall a little bit,” Crabbe said. “I think the goal is to try to string together singles and not try to pull back in too quickly. I think ultimately when we had our opportunities to score some runs, we didn’t get it done.”

Next up

RHP Beau Sulser will get the nod for Thursday night’s game. Sulser threw two innings in his first appearance with the Curve on July 14th. He would give up four earned runs on four hits against New Hampshire.

Sulser is no stranger to an Altoona uniform having played for the Curve in 2019.