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Baseball Today: Monday, April 30 »
April 29, 2007
PAWTUCKET _ It’s been 10 days since Pawtucket Red Sox pitcher Kason Gabbard worked in a regulation game. With his performance Sunday you would never have guess the left-hander had that much time off.
His last start was suspended with two outs in the bottom of the first inning with the PawSox holding a three-run lead at Buffalo on April 23. Yesterday, he worked six shutout innings, allowing just four hits with one walk and five strikeouts in his fifth start of the year.
Because of his layoff, Pawtucket manager Ron Johnson said he was keeping Gabbard to 90 pitches or six innings. He finished with 89 pitches (52 strikes) and left with a scoreless game. The Bisons scored four runs of Pawtucket reliever Bryan Corey in the top of the seventh and added two more off Mike Burns in the top of the ninth en route to a 6-0 victory at McCoy Stadium.
Despite the team’s loss, Gabbard was sharp.
“I’m just trying to go out there and get a feel for all my pitches and go from there,” said Gabbard. “I made the pitches when I needed to and the end result was good.”
Johnson called Gabbard’s outing outstanding.
For the second game in a row, the PawSox had plenty of opportunity to score, but couldn’t drive in the timely runs. Pawtucket 11 base runners yesterday and left the bases loaded in the eighth inning.
“I try not to get concerned with it,” said Johnson. “Because like I said earlier in the season, we’re a club that is going to get better. We’re going to have streaks and hot spurts. We’ve swung the bats very well the last couple of days and today we didn’t.”
The PawSox have faced some impressive pitching the last couple of games against Buffalo, and the Bisons’ Brian Slocum, yesterday’s starter, was on his game. The right-hander improved to 2-1 after throwing a three-hit shutout in six innings of work with one walk and seven strikeouts. He was a much different pitcher than the last time Pawtucket faced when he allowed five runs on seven hits in five innings and suffered the loss last week in Buffalo.
“That kid threw the ball really good today,” said Johnson. “We got to him pretty good in Buffalo, but today he pretty good.”
The PawSox and Bisons close out this four-game set at 6:15 tomorrow night at McCoy. Pawtucket will send Devern Hansack (1-2, 3.22) to the mound against Buffalo’s Jeff Harris (1-1, 3.27).
--JOE McDONALD
Posted by Chris Venditto 
at 6:47 PM to PawSox
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