THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 10, 1995 TAG: 9508100622
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
The Syracuse Chiefs had two runners picked off first base. They botched two bunt plays. They had a guy thrown out at the plate and once wound up with two men on third. In short, the Chiefs, with the second-worst record in the International League, offered the front-running Norfolk Tides chance upon chance to put them out of their misery before the 13th inning Wednesday at Harbor Park.
In the end, the Chiefs just couldn't stop giving and collapsed under the weight of their futility. The Tides, who put their leadoff hitter on base in each of the first three extra innings and failed to score, did it again in the 13th but finally came through with a 5-4 victory.
The first extra-inning game played at Harbor Park this season came to a close with the ball, thrown by shortstop Howard Battle, sailing over the head of catcher Randy Knorr with no outs in the 13th. Battle had just moved to short from third base at the beginning of the inning, which saw Syracuse's Chad Brown walk Tracy Sanders and Ed Alicea, whose two-run single in the sixth had given the Tides a 4-3 lead.
John Orton, who had three hits, followed the two walks with a bunt that skittered past Brown - yet another blown bunt defense - for a single that loaded the bases and brought up Greg Graham.
Graham hit a one-hopper to Battle, who committed his 23rd error by overthrowing Knorr as Sanders scored the winning run.
``It looked like they wanted to give it to us, we put guys on base and got them into scoring position but we couldn't get the big hit,'' Tides third baseman Butch Huskey said. ``If we'd have lost that game, I'd have felt bad for (Bryan) Rogers, because he did so well.''
Rogers, who followed Chris Roberts and Jim McCready to the mound, worked four perfect innings for his eighth victory in 10 decisions. With his overworked bullpen tapped out, Tides manager Toby Harrah said Rogers was his man until the end.
``Whatever it took,'' Rogers said. ``I knew we had nobody else in the pen. My attitude was just to go get outs and give us another shot, go inning by inning. We had a lot of opportunities, and sooner or later we were going to get a break.''
Make that another break. A 10th-inning rally, fueled by a leadoff walk to Ricky Otero and Jay Payton's single, fizzled when Paul Spoljaric retired the heart of the Tides' order, Omar Garcia, Huskey and Alex Ochoa.
In the 12th, Chiefs second baseman Felipe Crespo made errors on consecutive plays, including dropping a throw while covering first on a bunt. An intentional walk by Brown to Garcia loaded the bases with one out, but Brown struck out Huskey and Ochoa.
Finally, three hours and 46 minutes after the first pitch, a ball rattled against the backstop and the Tides took away a gift that, this time, they could not refuse. by CNB