'BIG TEX' ROUTS SQUIRRELS

BOOM!

The Worcester Eliminators, off to a slow start, outslugged their sibling rivals to take two on the road in Brooklyn, knocking the Moabs out of the top spot in the Eastern Division in large part due to the play of switch-hitting 1B Mark Teixeira.
In the opener, 'Big Tex' collected a key walk in a five-run eighth that saw he and his teammates score big against Brooklyn closer Neftali Feliz (1-1, 7.11), but he saved his best for the nightcap, crushing a BARB-record 4 HR off three different pitchers as part of a 17-6 blowout! WOW!

Brooklyn had to be hanging its collective head in shame. They had scored five runs off Worcester starter Ryan Dempster in the first game, and took a 6-3 lead into eighth. But Daniel Schereth couldn't get the left-handed hitting Carl Crawford, and Daniel Bard allowed a safety to Robinson Cano, creating the save situation with one out. Feliz relieved, and oh, it was ugly.

A balk put two runners in scoring position. Delmon Young singled them both home. Feliz wild-pitched Young to second. Teixeira took four pitches that were close, but not called strikes. Joe Mauer ripped a double to score Young and Teixeira, and put Worcester ahead, 7-6! For good measure, a Mike Morse groundout got Mauer to third, where he scored in Feliz's second wild pitch of the inning. It was all enough to make rookie Craig Kimbrel (2-0, 1.23) the winner and to make Moabs GM Eric Caskey seek a cold compress for the pain caused by such an epic collapse in front of the home-town faithful.

But Teixeira and the Eliminators were far from done tormenting their hosts. In the second game, the Worcester 1B put his club up 4-2 with his second HR of the season, essentially knocking Francisco Liriano (0-2, 9.72) out of the box in the third inning. The Elims would go to add two more runs in the frame against an ineffective Huston Street. Teixeira would hit two-run HR at the expense of Ryan Madson in both the fourth and fifth frames, then smack a one-out solo shot in the seventh against (gawking look of disbelief) 1B Daric Barton, in 'garbage time' with the game out of reach.

All told, Worcester piled it on, leading 11-2 after five and adding at least one run in each of their final three ups to give Colby Lewis (1-1, 3.52) an all-but-insuperable advantage, and (of course) his first win. The only bright spot for the Moabs? They put together enough hits in the bottom of the ninth to score four runs off the bottom-feeders of the Eliminators bullpen, a dubious honor at best. But the one-man wrecking crew of Mark Teixeira could've beaten them on his own, finishing with five hits, 17 total bases and 6 RBI. To put it another way, half of the Worcester 1B's season stats were collected in just this one game, an amazing performance.


In other BARB action:

FROSTBITE FALLS 5, SIN CITY 4

WP: Chris Perez (1-0, 0.00)
LP: Francisco Rodriguez (0-1, 9.82)

The Squirrels took a little bit of the wind out of the Cowboy's sails, scoring three times in the bottom of the ninth off Rodriguez, who had the early BARB lead for saves with three but hit Ricky Weeks with one out and a runner on to set the stage for....Albert Pujols, who smacked a two-run walkoff single.

PHILADEPHIA 14, CASSELTON 9

WP: John Lackey (1-0, 11.25)
LP: John Danks (1-1, 6.17)

The Rebels put together a seven-run fifth sparked by Carlos Beltran's two-run double, as John Lackey (6 ER) proved its better to get the run support than to actually outpitch the other guy, as John Danks was hurt by four errors, while his former teammate got the win. Carlos Gonzalez doubled, tripled and homered in a losing cause for the home town Horned Toads.

NEW ENGLAND 3, AC/BC 2

WP: Jonathan Papelbon (2-0, 2.25)
LP: Ryan Franklin (0-1, 9.00)

Pinch-hitter Darnell McDonald hit a tie-breaking solo shot off AC/BC closer Ryan Franklin with two out in the bottom of the ninth to help the Yankee Stompers pull out a close one in New England. It was the struggling Franklin's second blown save in as many chances....