Wednesday, June 5, 1996

PDogs roughed up by White Wings

By TED DUNNAM
Assistant Sports Editor

The seventh-inning stretch was a long time coming for the Abilene Prairie Dogs Tuesday at Scott Field.

Reason being, it was the first- and second-inning stretch from which Jared Baker pitched that resulted in a prolonged, agonizing defeat for the Dogs.

Rio Grande Valley batted around in each of the first two innings, roughing up Baker for 11 runs en route to a 12-3 victory for the WhiteWings.

While the WhiteWing bats were torturing the Dogs early, Valley pitcher Al Osuna turned in eight solid innings to easily preserve his huge lead.

Baker's nightmarish outing was best defined by the productivity of WhiteWing leadoff batter Lipso Nava.

After the top of the fourth inning, Nava had already batted four times, collected four singles, knocked in three runs and scored one.

"I've been swinging the bat well," Nava said. "I'm not doing anything special. I'm seeing the ball pretty well and just trying to put it in play.

"It feels good to get out to the big lead like that. But this is just the first game. This one was nice, but we've got two more."

The Valley scored six runs in the first inning on six hits.

Nava led off with a single, and one out later Ramon Cedeno and John O'Brien also followed with singles to bring in the game's first run.

WhiteWing Mark Cantu was then hit by a pitch to load the bases and Scott Kaczmar lashed an opposite field double to left to bring home two more runs for a 3-0 score.
Baker then hit Bobby Llanos before Pat O'Connor's bloop single to center madeit 4-0. A sacrifice fly to right by Cory Gafford and a line single to left by Nava - his second hit of the inning - upped the cushion to 6-0.

An equally disastrous second inning for the Dogs began when Cedeno ripped a leadoff double. One out later, Cantu singled to put runners at the corners.

Kaczmar then punched a single to right for a 7-0 score and after Llanos was again hit by a pitch, O'Connor delivered another RBI-single to make it 8-0. A Gafford fly out to center boosted the cushion to 9-0, and Nava dealt the final blow of the inning with a bloop single to center that plated two more runs.

After 11/2 innings and nearly one hour of baseball, the Valley had an 11-0 lead and Osuna had all the breathing room he needed.

Nava, who finished with five singles in six plate appearances, drove home theWhiteWings' final run with a fourth-inning hit for a 12-0 score.

The Prairie Dogs' scoring drought ended in the sixth inning when Rod Brewer was hit by an Osuna delivery and Paul Coleman followed with a two-run homer to left-center field.

However, that was the only real damage the Prairie Dogs could inflict on Osuna. A seventh-inning run by the Dogs was the result of two errors on WhiteWing third baseman Bobby Llanos and a sacrifice fly by Darryl Monroe.

"There's not much to say about this one," Prairie Dog manager Phil Stephenson said. "Jared got the ball up and they hit it. They got a couple of bloop hits and we made a couple of bad plays, defensively.

"After the second inning, they had the big lead and you just hope you can start swinging the bats well. But he's (Osuna) a veteran pitcher and when you spot him an 11-run lead, he ought to be able to protect it.

'I thought (Troy) Hirsch and (Mike) Hartung did a good job in relief. Occasionally, you have games like this. We've just got to get ready for tomorrow."