The Bowie Baysox prevailed over the Altoona Curve on Saturday night in a tight 2-1 contest to continue to stake their claim as the best team in the Eastern League. Garrett Stallings captured the win for Bowie in a game loaded with defensive wizardry on both sides, and the bullpen came up clutch to prevent the Curve from dealing any damage late.
The Baysox broke the scoreless stalemate in the bottom of the third, which was kicked off by J.D. Mundy smacking a shot all the way to the warning track for a double to start the inning in scoring position. Shayne Fontana reached first on a base hit soon after to get Mundy one step further to home, but Joey Ortiz’ weak grounder to second wasn’t enough to save Fontana from the force out. Luckily for the Baysox, Altoona second basemen Liover Peguero airmailed the throw to first to keep the inning alive and give Mundy the first run of the day. After Garrett Stallings relented a run to the opposition on a sacrifice fly by Fabricio Macias, Maverick Handley responded big by crushing a long shot over the left field wall to give the lead back to the home team in the fourth inning. The Baysox did all of their scoring early on tonight, but this wasn’t a problem as their pitching prevented the Curve from mounting any sort of comeback in the second half of the game.
Bowie’s Stallings (W, 4-8) dealt five and two-thirds innings, turning in a rock-solid appearance on the mound. He held the Curve to a lone run and six hits in an outing peppered with various forms of weak contact, collecting four strikeouts in the meantime. Jensen Elliott took the reins from that point forward, holding down the fort until he was replaced by Shelton Perkins. Perkins, however, struggled with walks, setting the stage for Clayton McGinness (Sv, 2) to complete the game. Altoona matched fire with fire in the form of Quinn Priester (L, 1-2), as the starter went for six and two-thirds innings and gave up both one more hit and one more run than his adversary. He was relieved by Colin Selby, who pitched admirably by striking out the side during his only full inning of work.
Bowie improves to 17-8 in the second half, and 44-50 overall. The two teams face off one last time on Sunday at 1:05 p.m.
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