THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506090690
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
After skidding through four consecutive losses, the Norfolk Tides sped straight and true past the Pawtucket Red Sox on Thursday behind daring baserunning and the darting deliveries of righthander Jason Isringhausen.
The result was a 6-1 victory, Isringhausen's fifth without a loss, punctuated by clouds of dust. The Tides got 11 hits, all singles, then ran Pawtucket ragged on the bases:
Ricky Otero went from first to third when Rey Ordonez beat out a fifth-inning bunt, then scored on a sacrifice fly.
Ordonez scored next when he stole second, went to third on catcher Scott Hatteberg's overthrow and came in when centerfielder Pat Lennon couldn't pick up the ball.
Derek Lee walked, stole second and raced home from there when Butch Huskey beat out an infield single to short in the sixth.
And Alberto Castillo waltzed home from third to make it 4-1 in the seventh when reliever Frank Rodriguez, trying to chase Ed Alicea back to first, hit Alicea with a pickoff throw.
``I like the aggressiveness. Little things lead to big things,'' Tides manager Toby Harrah said after his revamped lineup snapped the Tides' longest losing streak of the season.
Ordonez was shuttled from the second to eighth slot in the order and responded with two hits and two RBIs.
Otero went from leadoff to No. 7, and had two hits.
Alicea moved back into the leadoff role, and he too had a pair of hits.
``The last few nights I haven't liked the way things have been going,'' Harrah said. ``I wanted to shake things up a little bit.''
When it came to Isringhausen, again there wasn't much not to like. The 22-year-old with six Triple-A starts to his name saw his ERA creep dangerously close to the 1.00 mark when Cory Snyder ripped a home run in the seventh, Isringhausen's last inning of work.
That left him with an 0.77 ERA on a night when he walked five but struck out seven and gave up four hits.
His final strikeout was his biggest; a whiff of ex-Tide Tim Howard with men on second and third and one out in the seventh as he protected a 3-1 lead.
``I didn't think my fastball was that hard, but I had a pretty good curveball,'' said Isringhausen, who after the game greeted Mets farm director Steve Phillips with ``Whenever you're ready,'' a not-so veiled reference to Isringhausen's desire to go to the big leagues. ``The only thing I wasn't happy with was my control.
``We were really into the game, everybody was. We had good defense, a lot of diving plays. It was an all-around good game for everybody, really.'' by CNB