St. George, UT– The Tucson Toros jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in their first ever GBL playoff game and never looked back, defeating the St. George Roadrunners 9-4 Wednesday to take Game 1 of the best of 5 series. Tucson never trailed in the contest after scoring 3 times in the first inning.
St. George starter Raymar Diaz fanned Toros leadoff hitter Skip Adams to open the game, but allowed the next four batters to reach base in a big first inning for Tucson. Junior Spivey singled to Rightfield before both Dustin Yount and Lino Garcia drew walks off of Diaz to load the bases. Jim Rushford hit an RBI single to bring in Spivey. Andre Marshall followed with a sacrifice fly and Mayobanex Santana drilled an RBI single to give Tucson a 3-0 off of St. George’s ace before the Roadrunners had their first chance to bat.
The teams exchanged runs in the second inning and Tucson maintained a 3-run lead into the 5th inning when a 2-run blast by Lino Garcia made it 5-1. Garcia had five longballs during the regular season. Catcher Luis Apodaca, who went the entire regular season with out a home run, hit a towering solo shot that clear the scoreboard at Bruce Hurst Field, giving Tucson a 7-1 lead.
While the offense was rolling, Tucson starter Lorenzo Barcelo was overcoming the short field dimensions by inducing ground ball after ground ball. Barcelo was backed by stellar defense by the Toros, including nice plays by Santana at First Base, Adams at Third and a pair of spears on hard balls up with the middle by the moundsman himself. Lorenzo strung together four consecutive scoreless frames after the 2nd inning, but ran into trouble in the bottom of the 7th.allowing 3 runs, including a 2-run shot to St. George Centerfielder Ryan Stevenson, his second homer of the game. Barcelo finished with 4 runs allowed in 7 1/3 innings on 8 hits and no walks, while striking out 3.
Tucson added a pair of insurance runs in the 9th inning and relievers Cibney Bello and Reid Price combined to blank the Roadrunners 1 2/3 innings of work to close out the first GBL playoff win in franchise history and an early 1-0 series lead.
The Toros and Roadrunners will play one more game in St. George Thursday at 6:05 p.m. (Tucson time) before heading home to Hi Corbett Field for Game 3 on Friday at 7:00 p.m. Tucson’s broadcast experienced technical difficulties on Wednesday but it expected to be back up and working on Thursday on both COOL 1450 AM and streaming live on the web at www.tucsontoros.com.
