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By Jarrod Prugar
For the Mirror
The Altoona Curve have now lost nine of their last 10 games after a 6-1 loss to the Bowie Baysox Wednesday night in front of 4,045 fans at PNG Field.
Altoona's pitching staff struggled with command throughout the contest as Curve pitchers racked up 12 walks.
"They did a good job of making us get it over the plate," Altoona manager Robby Hammock said. "They didn't get many hits, but they didn't have to with 12 walks and one hit by pitch."
Bowie made Curve pitchers wear their walks.
In the fourth, Curve starter Anthony Solometo walked Ryan Higgins, then gave up a single to Dylan Beavers. Solometo got catcher Silas Ardoin to pop out for the first out before inducing a flyout by Frederick Bencosme to record the second out.
A walk to Tavian Josenberger set up a bases-loaded situation, and knocked Solometo out of the game. Reed Trimble then roped a line drive, three-run double off reliever J.C. Flowers to put Bowie on the board.
Flowers escaped the inning by striking out Collin Burns, but the fifth inning wasn't so kind. Flowers walked the bases loaded, throwing only two strikes to three hitters before being pulled for Emmanuel Chapman.
He was able to strike out the first two hitters he faced, but a walk to Benscosme scored a run to give the Baysox a 4-0 lead.
"It's just got to be better. It's got to be better. There's no, there's just no excuse for that and they know it," Hammock said of his pitchers.
Altoona fell to 20 games below .500 with the loss with a little over a month left in the season.
With the playoffs firmly out of the picture, there's still a lot to play for for those on the Curve roster, as they look to advance up the ranks in the minor leagues. How they handle the remaining portion of the season is controlled by them.
"Whether you come in and you get your face knocked in every night, keep letting that happen, or you can decide that you're going to do something about it," Hammock said. "That's as simple as that and you find out who separates themselves. We can't do anything for them, but we just keep pushing and keep learning and keep teaching, and then you just see who comes out of that, because not everybody moves on, not everybody makes the big leagues, but this is a situation where we can find out who is going to separate themselves."
On a positive note
Looking for bright spots in an otherwise brutal game in many facets was far from easy, but Chapman had the most impressive outing for Altoona pitchers Wednesday night.
Chapman tossed three innings and didn't allow a run or a hit. He struck out four while walking two. He walked in a run attributed to Flowers, but was able to get out of the inning and the bases loaded situation relatively unscathed.
"He did a good job coming in there with the bases loaded, no outs, preventing damage and only giving up one run in that situation was incredible," Hammock said. "It was a big moment. It kept us there to give us a chance to grind back in it, unfortunately, we weren't able to, but that was a key point in the game, to keep that right there, to give us a chance."
Not good
Altoona batters have struck out 19 times through two games of the six-game series against the Baysox.
Up next
Game 3 of the six-game series is tonight at 6.