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Offense struggles in loss for Altoona

For the second time in as many days the offense struggled for the Double-A Altoona Curve. This led to the Curve suffering a 4-2 loss against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, leading to an 0-3 start to the season.

Making his Double-A debut, righty Jared Jones started for Altoona and flashed some good things. In 4.2 innings pitched Jones allowed only one hit, albeit a home run, while walking two batters and striking out six. He hit a batter, threw 48 of his 75 pitches for strikes, and allowed 2 earned runs.

Jones will be one of the most intriguing arms to watch in the Pirate farm system this season. The 21-year-old is young for the Double-A level, but has tremendous spin rate and multiple plus pitches. Jones pitching his way into being one of the top pitching prospects in teh farm system would not be a surprise.

Nick Dombkowski relieved Jones, allowing a run on two hits in 1.1 innings pitched. While the run Dombkowski allowed was unearned it was due to an error he committed. Tahnaj Thomas walked a batter and struck a batter out in a scoreless 7th inning.

After Tyler Samaniego allowed a run in the top of the 8th inning, the Curve offense finally struck in the bottom half of the inning.

After catcher Dylan Shockley reached on a fielding error, right fielder and lead off man Josh Palacios singled. Henry Davis then hit his 1st triple of the season, scoring Shockley and Palacios, but fly outs by Liover Peguero and Matt Gorski ended the threat with Altoona trailing 4-2.

Matt Eckelman pitched a scoreless top of the 9th inning. However, the Curve offense failed to score in the 9th leading to the loss.