Chicago Dogs avoid sweep in Minnesota
ST.PAUL, Minn. - Behind homers from Victor Roache and Jordan Dean, the Chicago Dogs offense came alive to avoid the sweep, downing the St. Paul Saints, 11-9, on Tuesday night at CHS Field.
Roache swatted two big flies for four RBI on the night, and he moved into sole possession of second place on the American Association's home run leaderboard with 23 bombs on the year.
In a gutsy performance that saw him throw 121 pitches, Austin Wright (W, 7-7) allowed three earned runs on five hits and five walks with one strikeout over 5.1 frames.
Jordan Dean opened the scoring with a solo shot in the bottom of the first, his 13th of the season, giving Chicago the 1-0 advantage.
St. Paul got on the board in the bottom of the second, courtesy of an RBI single by Chris Baker to knot the game at one.
Run-scoring singles courtesy of Jeremy Martinez and John Silviano gave the Saints a two-run advantage in the bottom of the third.
The Dogs then roared back with a six spot in the top of the fourth. Three straight singles, the last of which came off the bat of Trey Vavra, scored Kelly Dugan to cut the deficit to one. Vavra then sped home on a wild pitch three batters later to tie the game at three.
Later in the same frame, Edwin Arroyo and Keon Barnum ripped back-to-back two-run singles to put Chicago ahead, 7-3.
Blake Schmidt reached on an error by Vavra to plate another Saints run, trimming the Dogs' lead to three after six innings.
With the score 7-4, Victor Roache launched a solo shot in the top of the seventh, pushing the Dogs' lead back to four.
Martinez hit a two-run double off of Luke Wilkins in the bottom of the seventh to bring the Saints within two.
Harrison Smith then tossed a perfect eighth inning, including serving up back-to-back strikeouts to Saints sluggers Michael Lang and Brady Shoemaker.
To increase Chicago's lead to five, Roache struck with his second dinger of the game in the top of the ninth, a three-run blast to center field.
The Saints rallied for three runs off Kyle Halbohn in the bottom of the ninth before he slammed the door to wrap up the win.