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By Jarrod Prugar
For the Mirror
Carter Bins hit a walk-off book-rule double to help the Altoona Curve to a 5-4 win over the Harrisburg Senators in front of 4,651 fans at PNG Field Sunday afternoon.
The large home crowd put an exclamation point on a season that featured a total attendance of 308,003 fans. That total marked the third time since 2008 the Curve had more than 300,000 in attendance.
It also marked the largest attendance for Altoona since 2019 when the Curve hosted 308,464 fans over the course of the season.
"What a nice way to end a season on a really fun place to play baseball," Altoona manager Callix Crabbe said.
The fans were treated to a back-and-forth game for its entirety that featured Bins knock three hits and three RBIs. Though, his last hit and RBI caused the crowd to burst into a frenzy when the ball left his bat.
"I knew I needed to get something out over the plate, runner on third less than two outs," Bins said. "I just tried to find a good pitch to get in the air and it ended up going over the outfielders' heads."
It was the perfect culmination of a season that saw the Curve go 39-30 in front of the home fans.
"To play in front of a great environment with the crowd like that today, it's awesome," Bins said. "It's the last home game of the year. I know everybody's excited, but all year the fans have been great from selling out when Paul Skenes was on the mound to a Tuesday night in the middle of the season. It's just amazing to play here and the fans here are awesome."
Throughout the 25 seasons of Curve baseball, the Altoona faithful have proved time and time again that Central PA is a great place to see a game and the fans were treated to some serious talent over the course of the season.
"I was talking to Joe Perez in the dugout. We were talking about how how great of a place it is to play here," Crabbe said. "It's been fun to end it in a way where the home fans are excited is great. We're wearing our yellow jerseys. They played really hard all the way through and through to the end. It's just a nice, nice cap on a fun season.
Team awards
On Saturday, the Curve announced the award winners for this season:
Most Valuable Player: Liover Peguero. Peguero hit .260 in 69 games before being promoted to Triple-A Indianapolis. He had 11 home runs and 34 RBIs at the time of his promotion.
Firemen of the Year: Nick Dombkowski and Cameron Junker. Dombkowski and Junker anchored an Altoona bullpen that threw the third-most innings in the Eastern League this season.
Domkowski has pitched in 32 games, accumulating 81 innings and has struck out 56 while holding opponents to a .235 average. Junker threw 51 innings and struck out 42 while having a 3.53 ERA.
Pitcher of the Year: Jared Jones. Jones allowed two runs or fewer in each of his 10 starts with Altoona. He's struck out 128 hitters between the Curve and the Indians.
Unsung Hero: Claudio Finol. Finol played three different positions across the infield in 2023 as well as spending time behind the plate.
Over the weekend
Jase Bowen roped two doubles in the 9-2 rain-shortened win for Altoona Saturday night.
Altoona got runs in the first, second and third innings to take a 9-0 before winning pitcher Aaron Shortridge allowed two runs in the fourth inning.
The skies opened up in the sixth inning and the game was not resumed.
Next up
The Curve head to Akron to face the RubberDucks for the final six games of the season, beginning Tuesday.