Stumbo

Peyton Stumbo’s 5ª shutout innings helped pave the way for a 10-3 Altoona Curve victory over the Chesapeake Baysox Wednesday night at PNG Field in front of 3,296 fans.

Stumbo struck out seven and walked one over the course of his outing, which featured a lot of getting ahead in the count and being efficient while on the mound to earn his first Double-A win.

“He set the tone for us,” Curve manager Andy Fox said. “Shutting them down and us coming out right out of the gate, scoring three was huge.”

Those three runs in the first inning came via some small ball and the long ball, which was big coming off a night where Altoona hitters struggled with runners on base.

“It gives the pitcher some wiggle room and things like that,” Fox said. “I think coming off of last night, where we had some opportunities to cash in and didn’t, but today we cashed in.”

Duce Gourson singled to lead off the inning, stole second and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Will Taylor. Titus Dumitru walked to put runners at first and third with one out. Callan Moss singled to score Gourson and both Moss and Dumitru would advance a base a piece courtesy of a walk to Omar Alfonso.

Javier Rivas roped a double to left field to score Moss and Dumitru and give the Curve a 3-0 lead heading into the second inning.

From there, it was all Stumbo as he’d allow only one base runner past second base in his outing.

“There’s been a process of throwing more strikes early in the count and being able to put guys away, and I think I did a good job of that tonight,” Stumbo said. “A lot of work for the defense today, there’s some soft hits, but it was good.

Rivas tripled to leadoff the fourth inning and scored on a Gourson forceout to give Altoona a 4-0 lead.

The Curve got another run in the sixth when Will Taylor doubled home Carlos Caro who walked earlier in the inning.

Chesapeake scored three runs in the top of the seventh off Altoona reliever Jarod Bayless who allowed a two-run home run by Tavian Josenberger which scored Johnny Tincher who singled home Douglas Hodo III earlier in the inning.

The Baysox would load the bases in the eighth inning, but Curve reliever Michael Walsh escaped the jam unscathed.

That set the tone for a five-run eighth inning to help seal the deal for the Curve against the Baysox.

“It was kind of like the floodgates opened, so it was nice to see them kind of hit around and the dugout kind of pick up a little bit towards the end of the game,” Stumbo said.

Extra, extra!

In the ninth inning, Altoona hitters went back-to-back-to-back with RBI extra base hits including back-to-back doubles by Dumitru and Moss and the exclamation point, a home run by Alfonso to expand the lead to 10-3.

“It’s all big, especially a lot of times coming off last night, where we didn’t cash in, but cashed in tonight and it gave us a little breathing room.

It put the finishing touches on a night that saw the Curve have seven extra base hits including five doubles, a triple and a home run.

“We’ve kind of scored a lot of runs lately at the end of the game,” Fox said. “Just to give Walsh a little breathing room coming off getting out of that jam there in the eighth and tacking on some runs in the bottom half was huge for us.”

UP NEXT

The Curve will send RHP Matt Ager to the mound Thursday night. Ager went four innings against New Hampshire and allowed two runs on six hits in 4.1 innings of work.