Every batter in the Altoona lineup recorded a hit on Sunday afternoon, but the Curve’s efforts fell short as Somerset took a high-scoring affair, 12-8, at Peoples Natural Gas Field.
Altoona recorded 13 hits in the loss, one shy of their season-high of 14. The Curve’s scoring featured a five-run seventh inning with home runs from Brendt Citta and Andres Alvarez. Trailing 12-3 at the time, Nick Gonzales and Liover Peguero opened the frame with back-to-back base hits, with Peguero smacking his 11th double of the season. Gonzales scored on a Blake Sabol groundout before Citta hit the two-run shot off former Curve reliever Steven Jennings.
Jennings then walked Aaron Shackelford before Alvarez hit the second two-run shot of the inning to make it a 12-8 game. Kyle Zurak entered the contest and walked Lolo Sanchez before Tucupita Marcano hit a single to put two on-base for the Curve. He then settled in to strikeout the next two batters to end the scoring affair.
Somerset had numerous multi-run innings of their own, including two runs in the fifth, five in the sixth, and four in the seventh. The two runs in the fifth came off Curve reliever Noe Toribio, who gave up two hits and struck out three in two innings to take the loss.
