Wednesday, July 3, 1996

Prairie Dogs close in on first-half championship

By LANCE FLEMING
Sports Writer

The Abilene Prairie Dogs haven't won a championship yet, but they're on the verge.

Abilene cut its magic number for clinching the Texas-Louisiana League first-half championship to one Tuesday night after beating Tyler 2-0 in front of 1,072 fans at Scott Field.

The game was stopped after seven innings after a 39-minute rain delay.

Abilene's victory improved its record to 29-15, five games ahead of Lubbock and Rio Grande Valley, who are tied for second at 24-20. If Abilene wins tonight it will win the league title because the worst it can do in the first half is go 30-20.

The best either the Crickets or the WhiteWings can do is match that record, and Abilene would still win the first-half title because it owns a better head-to-head record against both teams.

To boil it down even further, all Abilene must do to clinch the title is win one of its final six games, or have Lubbock and Rio Grande each lose one game.

Abilene got the job done Tuesday night behind the pitching of T-L League All-Star David Haas, who threw a complete-game shutout to improve his record to 7-3. He allowed three hits and struck out seven and lowered his league-best ERA to 1.82.

Not bad for a guy who says he didn't feel his best warming up in the bullpen before the game.

"This is the second time we've played Tyler coming off an off day," Haas said. "You don't get a chance to throw or stretch or work on those off days and it hurts you. I had major mechanical problems in the bullpen. You can't win down there, but you can lose down there.

"But then the batters stepped in and things started happening," he said. "Whenever you get a guy in the box it gets you going."

Haas was on from the start, getting the Wildcatters up and down in order in the first. He gave one hit in each of the second, fourth and seventh innings. He didn't walk a batter, and allowed just one man _ Ken Schamburg on a triple in the seventh _ to advance past first base.

"David pretty much stuck it to them," Abilene manager Phil Stephenson said. "They had a triple in the seventh, but other than that they just had two li4t-e singles. That ought to drop his (Haas) ERA a little more."

Abilene didn't do much more against Tyler start Rob Batchler, who lost to fall to 1-3.

He allowed just four hits and walked only one as he also threw a complete game.

But Abilene did touch him for two runs in the bottom of the first inning on three straight hits and a sacrifice fly.

Darryl Monroe led off the frame with a wind-blown triple and scored on an Eric Gonzalez infield single. Gonzalez then went to second on a passed ball, to third on a Manny Gagliano single and scored on a Rod Brewer sacrifice fly.

Batchler settled down after that, allowing only a Barry Jones single in the fourth inning. In fact, after the first inning the Prairie Dogs managed just three baserunners.

"Their guy (Batchler) did a good job of keeping us off-balance," Stephenson said. "We only had two hard-hit balls all night. I watched us take infield and it looked like we had the blahs after a day off. It seems like it always takes us a day or two to get back into the flow. But we played good defense and David pitched really well for us."