KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The Chicago Dogs scored 11 unanswered runs to beat the Kansas City T-Bones 11-5 in blowout fashion on Friday night at T-Bones Stadium.
The Dogs used a four-run eighth inning and multi-hit days by Keon Barnum, Tony Rosselli and Carlos Zambrano to seal the victory and pick up starter Austin Wright, who gave up only one earned run.
The T-Bones put the Dogs in an early hole in the first using a quartet of singles and capitalizing on two Chicago errors to go up 4-0. Kansas City leadoff man Brett Ryan reached on an error by Jordan Dean at third base, moved all the way to third on two wild pitches, and scored on a single by Dylan Tice. A few batters later, Casey Gillaspie made it 2-0 with an RBI single. Two batters later, Danny Mars knocked in two of his teammates with a single in his first at-bat as a T-Bone to make it a four-run lead.
In the top of the second inning, Tony Rosselli blasted a no-doubt solo home run to left to put Chicago on the board and chip into the Kansas City lead.
Chicago added two more runs in the fourth inning, led off by a walk from Trey Vavra, who moved to third on a Keon Barnum single. It was Rosselli again who drove in a run, this time with a single to score Vavra. Designated hitter Carlos Zambrano drove him with a single of his own to cut the deficit to one.
T-Bones starter Jonathan Perrin was otherwise untouchable, retiring the final 10 batters he faced in his seven innings of work in the no-decision.
Once the Dogs were able to get to the bullpen, the bats came alive. Robert Calvano (L, 0-1) came on in relief of Perrin in the eighth. The first two men he faced, Rey Gonzalez and Jordan Dean, both reached. A Vavra RBI groundout scored Gonzalez to tie the game.
With Keon Barnum at the plate, Dean scored on a wild pitch for the go-ahead run.
Two singles and a walk then loaded the bases for Zambrano. Eduardo Paredes immediately gave up a double to the MLB veteran, putting the Dogs ahead 7-4. Zambrano finished the day 2-for-4 with three RBIs.
The ninth inning saw the Dogs put up four more insurance runs. A single and two walks to start off the frame set the table for Vavra to knock in two with a double. He and Edwin Arroyo both scored on RBI groundouts from Barnum and Rosselli for the 10th and 11th Chicago runs of the night.
Kyle Halbohn (W, 1-0), Rich Mascheri, Brandon Shimo and Josh Goossen-Brown combined for three innings of relief, surrendering just one run on a solo home run by the red-hot Ramsey Romano in the bottom of the ninth.
The Dogs are back in action on Saturday night for game two of three against the T-Bones. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 PM with lefty D.J. Snelten (2-0) set to go for Chicago against Marc Magliaro (1-1) for Kansas City.
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