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| Mike Moustakas (Photo: Eldon Lindsay/omahastormcasers.com) |
Moustakas has been struggling with breaking pitches – especially on the outside portion of the plate and beyond. He’s also been susceptible to the high fastball. After failing to get runners home from third with less than two outs on two occasions earlier in the game last night, he got another shot in the bottom of the 12th.
Tacoma relief pitcher Mumba Rivera started Moustakas off with an inside breaking pitch that Moose took for ball one.
On the second pitch, Rivera came at him with what appeared to be another breaking pitch that Moose fouled off.
Rivera came back with another inside breaking pitch that was off the plate, but Moose took a cut at it and fouled it off his foot for strike two.
Rivera, ahead in the count 1-2, tried to bust Moose inside with a fastball – something a number of other pitchers have been doing successfully against Moose once they set him up with something off-speed outside. Apparently Rivera was trying to change things up a bit by throwing Moose off-speed stuff on the inside portion of the plate before trying to bust him inside. But Moose laid off this one for ball two.
I couldn’t tell for sure what Rivera threw Moustakas on the next pitch, but it appeared to be something off-speed and it caught enough of the plate for Moose to drive it over Halman’s head for the walk-off win. You can see the entire sequence in the video below.
Omaha has now won six of its last seven games. They currently find themselves tied for second with Memphis in the PCL American North division, 5.5 games behind the red hot Iowa Cubs. The Cubs have won nine of their last ten games.
Game two of the Omaha-Tacoma series is set for tonight at 7:05 pm at Rosenblatt. Omaha will send RHP Anthony Lerew (5-3, 3.48) up against Tacoma RHP Blake Beavan (1-0, 3.00).
