For the second time in three days the El Paso Diablos (20-25) used a big seventh inning to top the Pensacola Pelicans (19-25). This time it was a five run seventh inning to pace them to a 7-5 victory.
The Pelicans jumped out to an early lead. Dallas Christison and Francisco Leandro had back to back singles in the top of the first. Then after a Matt Pali groundout moved them over to second and third base, Brandon Sing had a sacrifice fly and Cesar Aranguren an RBI single to give the Pelicans a 2-0 lead.
Pensacola added another run in the third inning. With two outs, Matt Pali doubled and then Sing picked up his second RBI of the game on a single to center to make the score 3-0.
The Diablos got on the board for the first time in the ball game in the bottom of the fifth. With two outs, Alex Derhak doubled, then JD Reininger followed him up with another double that scored Derhak from second. Then Stantrel Smith reached base on a throwing error by the shortstop, Ricardo Cordova and Reininger came all the way around from second to score and make it 3-2.
In the bottom of the seventh the Diablos sent 10 batters to the plate and scored five runs. They scored the five runs on just two hits as there were four walks, one hit batter and an error. The big hit came by Matt Kent with the bases loaded and two outs he had a two run single. After seven innings the score was 7-3 Diablos.
The Pelicans answered back in the top of the eight inning. Francisco Leandro walked, then Matt Pali hit a triple off the wall in right field to get Leandro in. The next batter for the Pelicans, Sing hit a sacrifice fly to make the score 7-5. Pensacola could not manage another run in the ball game and ended up falling, by the final of 7-5.
Dane De Valk got the loss for the Pelicans after retiring the first 10 batters of the ball game and 15 of the first 16.
The win went to David Whigham who settled down after a shaky start to retire 13 straight batters in the middle innings.
The Pelicans will finish up the first half of the season in Shreveport with four games starting on Thursday at 7:05.
