Sunday, July 10, 2005

L 4-3

Zebulon, NC --- After going homerless for better than a year, Jose Reyes turned Sunday afternoon at Five County Stadium into Groundhog Day.

Saturday night, Reyes hit his first home run in 480 at-bats to win the game for West Tenn in 10 innings, and on Sunday, with the game tied 3-3 in the ninth, Reyes smacked a pitch from Carolina reliever Mike Flannery against the same scoreboard he hit in right-center Saturday for a 4-3 West Tenn victory, dropping the Mudcats from first place in the second half.  The Mudcats trail West Tenn in the North by 1/2 game, tied for second with Huntsville.

Ray Aguilar worked seven strong innings for Carolina, allowing just a two-run homer to Matt Craig in the sixth inning, which tied the game.  The Mudcats scored twice against unbeaten righthander Ricky Nolasco in the fourth inning on an RBI-double by JC Muniz, and a bobble on a grounder at first by Craig. 

After a single by Jason Hill scored the go-ahead run in the seventh inning, Kevin Cave allowed the tying run in the eighth before Reyes homered against Flannery in the ninth.

Nic Ungs starts the series finale on Monday night at 7:15 PM ET against West Tenn RH Carlos Marmol. 

WEST TENN            0 0 0   0 0 2   0 1 1   ---   4   8   2   6

CAROLINA              0 0 0   2 0 0   1 0 0   ---    3   8   2   9

WP - Atlee (1-1)

LP - Flannery (1-2)

S - Shipman (4)

HR - Craig (8), Reyes (2)

Time:  2:44

Att:  3,962