The Kansas City T-Bones (29-16) swept both ends of a doubleheader Thursday night at Airhogs Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas, over the Texas Airhogs (11-33).
It was a night of comeback magic and pitching history to take the first two games over Texas.
T-Bones come from behind to win first game
The T-Bones faced off against the last place Texas Airhogs Thursday night in Grand Prairie Texas. The T-Bones got their eighth comeback victory of the season, winning 4-3.
The Airhogs’ Casio Grider singled in the bottom of the second off Tommy Collier to score Cordell Prime. Then Na Chuang came in to score the second run of the inning on a Liam Chenchen sacrifice fly out.
The T-Bones answered in the top of the third, tying the game on a Dylan Tice single that would score the speedy Mason Davis. The next batter was Nick Torres, who singled in Dylan Tice for the T-Bones second run of the game.
The Airhogs struck in the bottom of the fifth as Stewart Ijames hit a sacrifice fly scoring Yang Jin.
Tommy Collier was knocked out of the game after five innings, allowing three earned runs on six hits and striking out five.
Starting pitcher Gan Quran for Texas gave his team a chance for a win, going a strong five and two-thirds, allowing two earned runs on six hits.
The T-Bones used their magic again, tying the game in the seventh as Mason Davis advanced to first on a drop-third -strike allowing Dexter Kjerstad to race home, sliding into the plate to tie the game at three.
In the eighth Dexter Kjerstad singled, scoring Zach Walters for the go-ahead run. Carlos Diaz put the hammer down on the Airhogs, recording his eighth save and completing the comeback for the T-Bones.
Gracesqui gets win in no-hitter
The T-Bones used four pitchers and a solo home run from Dexter Kjerstad to work a combined no-hitter and win, 1-0.
It was the second no-hitter thrown by Kansas City, the first coming in a doubleheader pitched by Matt Sergey against Texas on July 27, 2017.
Francisco Gracesqui (2-2), who struck out nine Airhogs over four hitless innings, got the spot start and the win for KC. Kevin Hill worked a 1-2-3 fifth inning and was followed by Joe Filomeno, who also tossed a clean inning in order.
The game was tied until the top of the fifth inning when Dexter Kjerstad launched a line shot home run to left field to break up Airhogs starter Sun Jianzeng’s no-hit effort through 4.1 innings.
The T-Bones summoned Cody Winiarski in the bottom of the seventh to notch the save as he gave up a two-out walk but was able to retire Casio Grider for the final out of the game. Jianzeng (0-3) was charged with the loss for Texas.
With Thursday’s pair of wins, Kansas City improves to 29-16 on the season while Texas drops to 11-33. The teams will play the third game of the series Friday night at Airhogs Stadium at 7:05 p.m.
Individual tickets, season, group, mini-plans and nightly party suites are on sale and can be purchased by visiting the box office at T-Bones Stadium or www.tbonesbaseball.com. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.
The T-Bones games are airing on the T-Bones Broadcast Network, http://mixlr.com/t-bones-baseball/.
– Story from T-Bones