If one is a fan of pitchers' duels then Sunday afternoon's battle between MLB.com's ninth prospect in baseball with the Altoona Curve's Tyler Glasnow and with the Akron RubberDucks' Shawn Morimando would have greatly entertained he or she.
From the get-go the 4,957 fans in attendance at Canal Park could tell that both starting pitchers had their A game as neither allowed a base runner to get into scoring position during the first two innings of action. Yet in the third and fourth, Morimando did find himself in trouble due to back-to-back base knocks to put runners on first and second with one out. Fortunately for the RubberDucks, in both instances the southpaw was able to escape by inducing outs in inning number three and taking matters into his own hands with strikeouts of Edward Salcedo and Jacob Stallings in frame four.
Also in the fourth, but during the bottom half, Akron was finally able to put bat on the ball against the Curve's Glasnow. Prior to the frame, Pittsburgh's top prospect was rolling with six whiffs, three of which came when he struck out the side in the third, and although the righty looked to be in for another easy inning by retiring the first two, Anthony Gallas shot a double to left to keep the inning alive. Next up was Carlos Moncrief and he was able to smack a ball to center fielder Adam Frazier. Gallas rounded third and was digging for home when Frazier came up with the ball to fire it home. The throw from Altoona's center fielder was on line as it bounced perfectly to the catcher Stallings, who put the tag on Gallas to keep the score knotted at zero. Though the game would not be tied after the next inning was through.
While the Curve went down 1-2-3 in the fifth, Akron started their chance to put runs on the board with a Ronny Rodriguez single. Following a line out by Joe Sever, the ninth batter in the lineup Alex Lavisky finally gave the home crowd something to cheer about as he blasted a Glasnow offering over the left center field wall for his first Double-A bomb of the season.
Despite one of the best pitchers in Minor League baseball bouncing back to strike out five of the final six batters he faced, the damage was already done as the RubberDucks' two run fifth inning was all that was needed to defeat the Curve on the day.
Upon Morimando's (6.0 IP, 5 H, 7 SO) exit, Akron's bullpen did not falter and instead stepped up to the challenge of completing the shutout with three innings of one hit ball.
As Tyler Glasnow finished with a season-high twelve strikeouts in six innings, 2015 All-Star Futures Game starter Bradley Zimmer as well as Cleveland Indians' rehabbing outfielder Nick Swisher had a tough day inside the batter's box by going hitless.
Thanks to Sunday's win, the Akron RubberDucks moved to just one game back of the Altoona Curve, who are currently tied for the last playoff spot in the Eastern League Western division.