After a rough game Wednesday morning, the Shreveport-Bossier Captains responded with timely hitting, excellent defense, and a stellar performance by righty Luke Massetti, who allowed four hits in a complete game victory, as the Captains beat the Grand Prairie AirHogs 5-1 with a crowd of 2,291 looking on at Fair Grounds Field.
Massetti (2-0) was hit the hardest in his first inning of work, when Aaron Garza, who went 6-for-13 in the series, started this game as he did yesterday’s, with a double down the left field line. After a groundout moved him to third, Cesar Nicholas singled him in to give the AirHogs (2-5) a 1-0 lead. But after a leadoff single in the second by Derek Nicholson, Massetti went on a run of 13 straight hitters retired, before back-to-back walks in the sixth with one out, and the Captains (4-3) leading 4-1.
But the righty escaped that jam, the only time all night that Grand Prairie had two men on base. After Billy Munoz popped out to third, Massetti watched as JB Tucker’s shot that went by him was fielded behind the bag by second baseman Albert Gonzalez, who set him self, jumped and threw out Tucker on a bang-bang play to end the inning.
The Captains got two unearned runs to take the lead for good in the third off righty starter Nat Harris (0-2). Aaron Cone was hit by a pitch to start the inning, and then mobbed to second on a one-out grounder. With two down, Richard Paz hit a grounder to short, but the first baseman Nicolas couldn’t handle the throw, allowing Cone to score to tie the game and moving Paz to second. Dwayne White made Nicolas pay even more for the error, singling home Paz to make it 2-1.
In the fifth, Shreveport-Bossier added to the lead with a two-out rally. Jonathan Reynoso, Paz, and White all hit singles to make it 3-1. After Andres Rodriguez walked to load the bases, and then Jose Torres drew a walk to knock out Harris and force in a run. The final Captains run came in the eighth, when two more AirHogs errors brought home Rafael Ozuna to complete the evening’s scoring.
But the story of the night was Massetti, who walked three and struck out six en route to his sixth career complete game. He gave up a one-out single to Tucker in the ninth, the first AirHogs hit since the second, but then got another nice defensive play as Ozuna started a nifty 6-4-3 off a tricky hop to end the ballgame and deliver the rubber match of the three-game series to the Captains.
Notes: The Captains have alternated wins and losses through their first seven games…Paz got the start at third base, with Cone as the designated hitter and Gonzalez as the second baseman, the first time all year that the Captains had a different defensive alignment to start the game…White has a team-leading six RBIs, but hadn’t had any since the second game of the season…Reynoso was caught stealing in the first, the first time so far this season that a Captains player was nabbed trying to steal…Nine of the 11 hits in the game were singles, with Garza and Rodriguez’s doubles the only extra-base hits on the night…Thad Markray’s eight innings on opening night in Pensacola were the previous high for a Captains starter this season, but five of the seven starters have pitched at least into the seventh inning.
