For five innings Arturo Maltos-Garcia and Brandon Petite engaged in a pitcher’s duel.
Petite blinked first.
Maltos-Garcia threw a four-hit gem as the Moose Jaw Miller Express beat the Lethbridge Bulls 3-0 in Western Major Baseball League play Friday.
“It was a great, great effort,” said Express head coach Michael Hunt. “I can’t say enough about the job Arturo did. He threw really, really well.
“I knew we were going to see Petite — he’s a guy that can throw really well for them. And I knew with Arturo going for us it was going to be a bit of a pitcher’s duel. That’s exactly what it was.”
The Express finally broke the deadlock in the sixth inning. Fred Atkins singled for Moose Jaw’s third hit of the game. Then Petite walked three straight batters to bring Atkins around to score. That was the end of Petite’s outing, but not the end of the Express’ scoring.
Ben Douglas hit a sacrifice fly to cash in another run and give the Express a 2-0 lead.
Petite finished with nine strike outs and only allowed three hits, but took the loss.
The Express added some insurance in the seventh when Christian Wise hit a lead-off single and then came around to score on two errors and a wild pitch.
That was plenty for Maltos-Garcia who allowed four hits in eight innings. He struck out eight batters and walked two. Maltos-Garcia had a three-hit win over eight innings in his last start.
It’s the Express first shutout since July 8, 2007 — a 2-0 win over Swift Current shared by four pitchers.
For more please see Saturday's Times-Herald.
