TROY – Consistency has eluded the Tri-City ValleyCats almost a third of the way into their Frontier League season.
Entering Thursday night’s series finale against the Lake Erie Crushers, the ValleyCats had alternated wins and losses in their previous eight games and hadn’t been two games over .500 since they were 2-0.
The ValleyCats took a step on Thursday toward putting their erratic ways behind them. Starting pitcher Dwayne Marshall and two relievers held down the Crushers and Tri-City hit three more homers to prevail 9-2 for their second straight victory before 1,602 fans at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium.
The ValleyCats (16-14), who routed Lake Erie 13-6 on Wednesday, earned their first back-to-back victories since beating Empire State June 3 and 4.
“That’s the whole part of baseball – you’ve got to try to find a way to stay as consistent as possible,” said ValleyCats leftfielder Aaron Altherr, who smoked a two-run homer to left in the sixth inning. “The more consistent you can be, the better off you’ll be. We’ve done a pretty good job the last week, week and a half, so hopefully we can just keep that going.”
Trey Hair gave the ValleyCats the lead for good by smashing a three-run homer to right for a 4-2 lead in the fourth inning.
Then Pavin Parks and Altherr had their own exit velocity contest. Parks ripped a liner that traveled 112 miles per hour off the bat for a solo home run to right that made it 5-2 in the fifth. After that came Altherr’s laser to left that went almost 110 mph.
Altherr acknowledged he preferred homers with a little more altitude.
“I like the ones you can admire a little bit,” Altherr said. “I didn’t think it was going to be high enough. I thought it was going to hit the wall. I definitely prefer the ones you can look at a little bit and know it’s gone.”
Meanwhile, Marshall (4-1) battled…
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