Pitching, timely hitting lead T-Bones past RailCats

TBonesbaseball.com

The Kansas City T-Bones, behind timely hitting and a solid 2012 pitching debut for Brian Grening, defeated the Gary SouthShore RailCats 5-3 on Monday night at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.

Grening, who originally was scheduled to pitch on Sunday against New Jersey but was switched in the rotation, retired 12 consecutive RailCat batters, starting with a strike out of former T-Bones player Rico Washington in the third inning.

Grening’s 12th out was a strike out of Kyle Haines for the first out of the seventh inning.

“(Grening) was able to keep them off balance and he knows – he’s played for them before, so he knows their approach,” Kansas City manager Kenny Hook said. “He went right at them and threw strikes, and then, as he got into some jams he used his changeup and was able to get out and get some ground balls.”

Grening went 6 2/3 innings, giving up two runs while striking out seven and walking only one.

Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the third, Kansas City’s Brandon Jones and Lee Cruz hit a pair of sacrifice flies that scored Gus Milner and Sean Henry, respectively, giving the T-Bones a 2-1 lead.

Kansas City got another run in the fourth when Jose Duran scored on a two-base throwing error by Gary SouthShore right fielder Mike Massaro.

The T-Bones stretched their lead to 4-1 when Reid Fronk slammed a solo home run to left field in the fifth.

Jake Wiley pitched the ninth for Kansas City and picked up his first save of the season.

The T-Bones (2-3) and RailCats (2-3) are scheduled for game two of their three-game series on Tuesday evening at CommunityAmerica Ballpark, with first pitch set for 7:05. Josh Rainwater (0-1) is scheduled to pitch for the T-Bones against Kyle Wilson (0-0) for the RailCats.