Report by the Armada’s Marcelo Figueroa

Long Beach struggled once again to put up runs at Blair Field and fell in the second game of the four game series 6-3 to the Tucson Toros. The Armada is now 1-4 in the second half and 21-22 overall.

Tucson jumped on the Fleet early Friday night. Skip Adams led off with a double before moving to third on a groundout. Dustin Yount singled to drive in Adams and give the Toros the 1-0 lead at the end of an inning of play.

After Jason Jacome held the Armada scoreless through the first two innings, Tucson padded their lead in the third inning. Adams singled to lead off the inning and advanced to second on a Fox throwing error. An out later Yount singled to right to put runners on the corners with one out. Andre Marshall hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Adams to extend the lead to 2-0. After a Jim Rushford single and Curt Miaso double the Toros built their lead to 4-0 over Long Beach.

In the top of the fourth, Tucson added one more when the catcher Dylan Parzyk hit a solo shot over the left center field wall to give the Toros the 5-0 lead.

In the next inning, Long Beach made its attempt at a comeback. Brandon Howard led off the inning with a single and Omar Bramasco hit his second homerun of the year to cut into the Tucson lead at 5-2.

Tucson would strike back in the top of the sixth. Miaso led off with a walk and a couple of base hits from Parzyk and Ryan Priddy made it 6-2 at the end of six innings.

The Armada would get one of those runs back in the bottom of the seventh when Josh Womack walked and stole second base. He advanced on a wild pitch to third and came in on a past ball to cut the lead to 6-3. But that is as close as the Fleet would make it as Rene Garcia and Reid Price pitched shutout eighth and ninth innings for the Toros.

Scott Lonergan will take the hill for the Fleet Saturday night. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05pm.