Pelicans Win Home Opener Over AirHogs

May 22, 2010

The Pensacola Pelicans bear the AirHogs 2-1 in the Pels’ home opener Friday night.

Jared Gothreaux (1-1) was the player of the game as he dodged in and out of trouble on numerous occasions to get his first win of the season. Gothreaux only gave up one run off 12 hits against the AirHogs.

The AirHogs scored the game’s first run though in the 5th inning of the game. Jaun Camacho hit a blooping RBI single over Adolfo Gonzalez’s head into shallow left field to bring home David Espinosa to give the AirHogs a 1-0 lead.

The Pelicans had their chances to score early, but had trouble finding that RBI hit through the first 5 innings.

However in the 6th inning, Javier Brito popped a ball up in the air to shallow right and Jose Duran dropped it putting Brito at second base. One out later, John Alonso hit a liner to left which sailed over the head of Chad Gabriel who mis-managed the ball which brought home Brito to tie the game up at 1-1. Alonso raced into third on the play just being the cut off throw from shortstop David Espinosa. Joey Side followed Alonso by getting hit in the stomach by a fastball thrown from AirHogs reliever Jeff Williams. The Pelicans had baserunners at first and third with one out and Lou Palmisano hit a very week grounder in the hole at short which Espinosa threw to second to get the force on Side, but that was it. The grounder was hit too softly to double up Palmisano allowing Alonso to score to give Pelicans a 2-1 lead.

In the 7th inning, Gothreaux flirted out of his last stressful inning of the game as Flint Wipke was at second with two outs and Greg Porter was at the plate. Gothreaux struck out Porter for his 8th and biggest strikeout of the game.

Tyler Wilson replaced Gothreaux in the 8th inning and struck out 3 batters in a scoreless inning. Tommy Baumgardner pitched a scoreless 9th for his 3rd save in as many chances this season.

Jarod Plummer (1-1) took the loss in a tough luck game for him as he gave up 2 runs-1 earned through 5 1/3 innings pitched.

The Pelicans and AirHogs will continue their 4 game series tomorrow night at 6:45pm. Aaron Jackson will take the mound against Matt Green with the pregame show at 6:30pm. Chetan Chaudhari will be on the call on pensacolapelicans.com.

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