Hit batter gives Storm win

After the pitch, he stepped out of the box and realized he made a mistake.

"I'll take it any way I can get it," Scales said.

Three pitches later, Scales took it. When Belflower's 2-2 pitch sailed inside, Scales did a small shuffle, but the pitch plunked his thigh.

Just like that, the Storm beat the JetHawks, 4-3.

"I tried to go inside, and I just missed it, I hit him," said Belflower, who entered the game to face Scales. "I didn't want to leave it in the middle of the plate. That's a big part of the game, coming in. I tried to put it where I wanted to put it, and I missed."

The Storm's next batter, Xavier Nady - the league's leading MVP candidate - hit a routine ground ball to third base, ending the inning. But the damage had been done.

The Storm loaded the bases on a double and two walks. Brandon Medders (1-2) allowed the double and the first walk to take the loss. Greg Jacobs faced one batter, Vince Faison, and walked him on four pitches.

"Greg Jacobs didn't throw a strike to the lefty, and that put us in a rough spot," JetHawks manager Scott Coolbaugh said.

That was the second time in two innings that Nady failed to drive in a key run, but his teammates made it so he didn't have to. In the seventh, with one out, runners on first and second and the JetHawks leading by one, Brandon Medders struck Nady out on an inside fastball. But Ben Johnson, the next batter, lined a single up the middle, tying the game.

Scales' easy RBI finished the Storm's mild comeback, erasing a 3-1 deficit in the final four innings. The JetHawks took a one-run lead in the second by scoring two runs, then stretched it with Cedrick Harris' opposite-field home run in the fifth.

The Storm chipped away, scoring one run on Nady's run-scoring single in the fifth and tying the game in the seventh.

By that time, the game belonged to the bullpens. JetHawks starter Hatuey Mendoza allowed two runs, one earned, in 5 innings. He allowed seven hits, walked four and struck out two.

Storm starter Chris Rojas struggled to get through the first two innings then settled down. After Jeff Waldron singled two runs home, Rojas walked Rico Montas to load the bases. Storm manager Craig Colbert had a reliever warming up in the bullpen, but Rojas retired Harris and Matt Kata, ending the threat.

"We allowed it to go down to the wire," Coolbaugh said. "We had the bases loaded, had a chance to break it open, and we didn't.

"We let (Rojas) kind of sneak out of it. He kept himself in the game."

After the second inning, the JetHawks managed just one hit - Harris' home run off Rojas - in the final seven innings. Andy Bausher (2-2) pitched two hitless innings to earn the victory, and Andy Shibilo struck out the side in the ninth on 11 pitches for his 12th save.

Uploaded August 16, 2001