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Altoona Curve

Not a signature win: Curve come up short against Chesapeake on world record night

By Jarrod Prugar 5 min read

The Altoona Curve offense sputtered en route to a 2-1 loss to the Chesapeake Baysox Tuesday night in front of 6,208 fans at PNG Field.

Both Baysox runs came in the second inning when Curve starter Po-Yu Chen gave up a two-run home run to Carter Young.

"It's hard to win when you only get two hits," Altoona manager Andy Fox said.

The Curve got a run back in the third when center fielder Jase Bowen roped a double that turned into a run on two throwing errors.

Bowen's little league home run was the lone hit the Altoona offense mustered until a Mitch Jebb single in the ninth inning.

"They ran some good arms at us today," Fox said. "They pitched well, and sometimes you've got to tip your hat. We couldn't really get anything going, a little in the ninth, but we weren't able to cash in."

Chesapeake's Trace Bright struck out eight in five innings of relief work for the Baysox and allowed only the hit to Jebb and one walk. Baysox starter Levi Wells threw 3• innings, allowed one hit and struck out five.

"We struck out 14 times and walked once," Fox said. "They were commanding the ball, executing pitches and working ahead -- all things you wanted to have with your pitching staff."

Bullpen brilliant

Tasked with covering six innings, the Altoona bullpen maintained the upper hand against Chesapeake as three pitchers combined to hurl six shutout innings and keep the Curve in it until the end.

Valentin Linarez threw 1ª innings, struck out three and walked one. Blake Townsend entered for Linarez and tossed three innings in which he allowed two hits and struck out three.

Beau Burrows threw the final 1• innings and promptly struck out two and allowed only one hit.

"They've just maintained what they've been doing all year," Fox said. "They've been stemming the tide for us, keeping us in games and giving us a chance. They did that again today."

Valdez exits

Outfielder Esmerlyn Valdez exited Tuesday night's game with an apparent leg injury in the top of the sixth inning.

Valdez was sprinting toward a foul ball and injured his leg while sliding for the baseball.

"Valdez is at the hospital getting some x-rays of his lower leg," Fox said. "We'll know more tomorrow. It's a little too early to tell the extent of it."

Setting world record

All who attended Tuesday's game at PNG Field were on hand to witness a world record in the making.

An 8-foot, 1,200-pound replica Minor League baseball made a stop on its tour around Minor League Baseball stadiums to become the world's most autographed baseball.

Fans, players and staff were able to sign the ball throughout the course of the game, and the line continued for nearly seven innings of play.

"It is a really cool thing to be a part of," Curve fan Dane Leone said. "Being able to potentially be a part of baseball history is something I wasn't expecting but is neat to think about.

Entering Tuesday night, the ball had 4,439 signatures. After the game, it was estimated, the ball had 4,942 signatures. The previous world record was 2,146 signatures on a soccer jersey in the United Kingdom, which means that every person who signed the ball while at PNG Field held a world record albeit very briefly.

The idea was derived by those in the Minor League Baseball office as a way to bring together communities and draw into the quirkiness that is Minor League Baseball.

"We like to have a lot of fun in Minor League Baseball," vice president of marketing for Minor League Baseball Kristin Stratton said. "There's all sorts of things about the minor league experience that you can really only find in our ballparks. And we thought, you know, 'what's the way we can go even bigger, even better? And let's, let's try to break a record that nobody's done this before, might as well test it out in Minor League Baseball."'

That led to the creation of the ball and the development of a tour of cities as far west as Indianapolis and coming back east through Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey before ultimately landing in New York City at MLB headquarters on July 29.

"A lot of it was triangulating mileage math and trying to figure out how far we could get within the six-week time period we had, knowing we wanted to end this tour in New York, outside of the Major League Baseball offices," Stratton said. "In a perfect world, we get to all 120 clubs, but we would need a ball about 10 times the size of the one that we have, which would not be road legal."

The ball arrived early Tuesday morning and will be departing for Lehigh Valley and the Ironpigs this morning.

Up next

Altoona will have a matinee game Wednesday afternoon with a noon start.

Starting at /week.