The Express knocked the ball all over the park last night and held on for a 7-5 victory. Mark Saccamanno stretched his hitting streak to 6 games with a 3 for 4 performance that included a double and a homer run with 3 RBI. Reggie Abercrombie also went 3-5 with two doubles and a triple. Josh Miller grabbed his first win by pitching 6 shutout innings in his first start after 3 bull pen appearances.

Corpus Christi

The Hooks outhit Midland but Midland had more baserunners cross the plate in the 8-3 Hooks loss.

“It’s frustrating for sure. It’s frustrating to get good pitching performances out of your pitchers. They had some runs tonight, but I don’t feel like they beat us as bad as the score said it was,” said Hooks right fielder Eli Iorg, who had three of the Hooks’ hits. “A lot of the game was 1-1. I think that we definitely played better than that. But things happen and they played good. Their pitcher pitched when they needed him to pitch.”

Brian Bogusevic pitched well despite giving up his league leading 6th HR.

“He threw the ball well. He’s had back-to-back quality starts. He threw the ball well on the road, too,” Pujols said. “He gave us five good innings. It’s too bad about the home runs, but I was pleased with the way he threw the ball. He competed. The last two starts are better than the first two, so he’s getting better.”

Base running hurt the Hooks as well.

In that third inning, however, Drew Sutton was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Manzella’s single. In the first, Sutton also was thrown out at the plate on Rob Cosby’s single to left, ending the inning. Iorg singled to lead off the second, but he was picked off.

Salem

It’s was all about control, or lack their off. Casey Hudspeth struggled with his control allowing a run on a bases loaded walk and hitting another batter with the bases juiced. Hudspeth walked 6 and hit 2 on the night. Mark Ori singled in the only two Salem players to cross the plate in the 4-2 loss.

Chad Reineke lasted only 3 1/3 innings for the second consecutive start. The Express couldn’t dig out of the hole and lost 6-1.

Corpus Christi

Brian Bogusevic pitched six solid innings but got no decision. New acquisition, Jose Oyervidez, was the man of the hour putting out the 2 on, nobody out fire in the 9th with only 6 pitches to preserve a 3-2 win.

The Hooks bats are warming up and a few are even streaking:

Manzella (five), Paz (six), outfielder Ray Sadler (four) and Sutton (six) extended hitting streaks on Tuesday. Sutton, who is batting .375, has hits in all 11 of his starts.

Salem

The Av’s are nothing if not competitive. Five of Salem’s six wins have been by one run. So have 4 of their 5 loses. Last night it was one of the loss variety. Polin Trinidad pitched 6 perfect innings, then he came out for the 7th and ran out of gas. In the 7th he sandwiched a double between two walks to load the bases with no one out. He was relieved by Jason Dominguez who walked in a run and surrendered a sac fly to tie the game up at 2. Fredrick scored in the 12th for the victory.

Trinidad was very effective according to the Key’s players:

“He kept on pounding his fastball inside and we couldn’t do anything with it,” Davison said.

Lexington

The Legends took advantage of some Crawdad errors in the first to build a 3-0 lead. They held on for the 6-4 win. Carlos Ladeuth got his first win of the season going six innings allowing only one earned run on six hits, one walk with six strike outs. Matt Cusick hit his second home and his forth double of the season during the game. Brandon Barnes is struggling in a mighty way. He went 0-4 with 4K’s last night bringing him to 20K’s in 36 AB.

Josh Mueke’s bounced back after giving up a first inning homer to only allow 2 other hits over 5 innings, while striking out 5 and walking none. He earned the win after his teammates scored 2 in the sixth and single runs in the 7th and 8th for a 4-2 win.

Corpus Christi

The bats came alive for Corpus Christi as they tied a team record for runs in a 15-5 drilling of Tulsa. Although the bats were the story, Brian Bogusevic had a decent start to his 2008 season. He reached his 75 pitch limit 2 batters into the 5th and ended with a line of 4 innings pitched, 6 hits, 1 earned run, 1 walk and 3 strike outs.

“It was pretty good,” Hooks manager Luis Pujols said. “We were able to score early in the game and maintain. Bogusevic gave us four good innings, and we were able to hang on.”

Remember that, 10 run wins equal holding on for Manager Pujols.

Ryan McKeller pitched 3 innings of shut out relief for the win and got a hit and an RBI as well.

Kaz Matsui will be joining the Hooks on Tuesday.

“That’s the plan right now,” said Ricky Bennett, the Astros’ assistant general manager and director of player development. “He’s got a doctor’s appointment Monday and if all goes well then he’ll go on assignment in Corpus on Tuesday. There’s an off day Wednesday and he’ll got back (to Houston) and then to Tulsa Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday. That’s the plan right now. That all could change pending his doctor’s appointment.”

Salem

Polin Trinidad shook off a line drive off his pitching hand from the first batter in the first inning and earned an opening day win for the Avs.

“There’s something about that kid, he just competes,” Avalanche manager Jim Pankovits said. “He may not throw 92 or 93, his stuff might not be eye-opening, but he knows how to pitch and he’s mature beyond his years.

“He’s got a bright future ahead of him.”

The Avalanche scored 4 runs in the 5th with 2 outs to put enough runs on the board for the 4-3 over Potomac.

Clemens Spotted Spending

The local paper has a story about how nicely people behaved having Roger Clemens in the house to watch Koby. Apparently southern decorum doesn’t extend to keeping transactions private.

Still, in this town, benefit of the doubt and courtesy rule. Clemens easily made his way through the crowd to the gift shop and spent about $220 on 10 Avalanche T-shirts and four or five hats, according to the shop employees. Even those who asked for autographs did so respectfully, waiting until after he’d finished his shopping.

“He was so low-key and polite,” said Charles Cooper, who helped ring up Clemens’ merchandise. “He talked to everybody. Very pleasant.

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“Last year was a big year for him,” Astros assistant general manager Ricky Bennett said. “For the first time, he started to show that consistency. He’s a little older and only pitching full time for about two years now.

Bogusevic is working on his slider & change up during the off season.

On Sapp:

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“He’s really made some strides thus far, but we’d like to see some more consistency,” Bennett said. “He’s at a point now and he’s been in the organization a couple of years, this is normally the time a few of them start to make that jump and show more consistency.”

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The Astros have been monitoring Sapp’s big-body physique in an effort to keep him in better shape. He has been doing pilates and recently started doing hot yoga, which is yoga in room heated to 95-100 degrees.