Published: August 10, 2009 11:39 pm      

Columbus clips Altoona with a pair in the ninth

LILLY — Columbus manager John Chiero was trying to remain calm Monday afternoon at the Lilly-Washington field, but it was a tough task.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and his Ohio Bandits trailing 3-2, Columbus scored a pair of unearned runs on two Altoona errors to come away with a 4-3 victory in AAABA first-round action.

“I have heart trouble. I can’t have that,” Chiero said. “Their pitcher got a bad bounce and guys were alert. They (Altoona) had played a great game defensively. They had a couple of bad throws at the end, and we were lucky. It was ironic because our baserunning during the game killed us. We ran ourselves out of a couple innings.”

Johnston Realty had managed to get itself out of trouble several times in the contest.

Pitcher Christian Muth got two outs in the ninth, but a wild pitch allowed Garr Keen to score the tying run and a fielder’s choice that went badly resulting in a pair of miscues, plated Jordan Chiero with the winning run.

“You let teams hang around in a 3-2 tight game, you’ve got to expect that anything can happen in the last inning and it did,” Altoona manager Kurt Fara-baugh said. “We threw the ball around. I think when you have kids that are used to playing aggressively, making plays, that sometimes happens. That play at third there was instinct for (catcher) Zac (Czap). He thought he could just shoot it to third and the thought that it’s the winning run doesn’t cross your mind when you’re an aggressive athlete like that. He threw it away and we had him dead at home and we threw it away again. He tried to make a play.”

Altoona put a pair of runs on the board in the first as leadoff batter Johnny Martinez was hit by a pitch then stole second, and came home on a triple by Matt Baer (2-for-4). A ground out scored Baer for a 2-0 lead.

In the bottom of the first, Keen walked and went to second on a single by Andy Podolak. A passed ball and wild pitch by starting pitcher Ryan MacNamara allowed Keen to score, cutting Altoona’s lead in half.

Johnston Realty tacked on another run in the fourth as Jake Shaffer singled and stole second. A single by Cord Heine moved Shaffer to third. When Heine was caught in a rundown, Shaffer was able to score.

Keen scored another Columbus run in the fifth to narrow the Altoona lead to 3-2.

Johnston stranded a runner at third in the top of the ninth, setting up the wild finish.

“I think we made the right selection on pitching, we just didn’t score runs and didn’t hit the ball and the last inning we threw it away,” said Farabaugh, whose team had seven hits. “We planned our pitching right. We just lost the game elsewhere.”