K-Tribe slowly ascending Carolina League South Division ladder

Published in Sports on August 17, 2005 2:02 PM

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KINSTON -- The Kinston Indians scored four unearned runs off Mitch Talbot with two outs in the decisive fourth inning and went on to defeat Salem 6-2 before 1,144 fans at historic Grainger Stadium on Tuesday night.

The win brought Kinston to within 41/2 games of Salem in the Southern Division as the K-Tribe improved to 23-28 in the second half and 64-57 overall. The Avalanche fell to 27-23 and 57-63.

The game was scoreless for the first three innings before Hunter Pence's infield single brought in Ben Zobrist to give the Avalanche a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth.

The Indians came right back in the bottom of the fourth and were helped greatly by back-to-back errors by Zobrist. After Talbot retired the first two men, Brian Barton hit what should have been the final grounder of the inning to Zobrist at short, but Zobrist threw the ball over the head of Pat Peavey at first and Barton hustled to second on the two-base error.

Zobrist had a chance to redeem himself on the very next play, but this time he booted Ryan Goleski's grounder as the Indians put runners on the corners. David Wallace then beat out an infield single up the third base line to score Barton and tie the game at 1-1, and Micah Schilling blooped a two-run double to shallow center field to give the K-Tribe a 3-1 lead they would never relinquish. Argenis Reyes capped the inning with another RBI single to make it 4-1.

The teams traded runs in the fifth with Salem scoring on an RBI fielder's choice by Saul Torres and the Indians picking up a run on Barton's single to left.

Kinston finished the scoring in the bottom of the sixth when Brandon Pinckney led off with a double and came around on Stephen Head's two-out single.

Tom Mastny (7-3) threw the ball well again for Kinston, winning for the fifth time in his last six decisions. He allowed two runs (one earned) on five hits in 5.2 innings, walked two, and struck out seven. Talbot (7-8) gave up five runs and seven hits in five innings, but only one of the runs was earned. He walked three and struck out three.

Kyle Collins, Tony Sipp and Todd Pennington combined to allow just two hits over the final 3.1 innings. Reyes, Head and Pinckney all finished with two hits to lead the Indians offense, and Pinckney extended his hitting streak to 10 games. Rodney Choy Foo walked three times and reached base for the 20th straight game.