Walk-Off Home Run Dooms Hurricanes, 5-4
May 11, 2003
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Miami dropped their first-ever series to Jacksonville with a 5-4 loss on a walk-off home run by Rob Hudson in the ninth inning in front of 356 fans a Alexander Brest Field.
Trailing 4-2 with two outs in the eighth inning, Ryan Braun connected for his second home run of the day with an opposite field shot to right field. The home run tied the score at 4-4 and was Braun’s 13th of the season.
Darren Truty turned in a solid 7.1 innings of work for the Dolphins, allowing only six Hurricane hits and two runs. He struck out six and walked two. Bobby Bowman picked up the win to improve to 2-0 on the season with two thirds of an inning.
The loss drops the 17th-ranked Hurricanes to 33-13-1 headed into a four-game series with Savannah State that gets underway on Friday, May 16th, at 7 p.m. Jacksonville improves 26-26 on the season.
Braun crushed his 12th home run with two outs in the first inning. The home run gave UM an early 1-0 lead and landed deep over the left-center field fence. He led the way at the plate for Miami with two home runs and three RBIs.
Jacksonville got on the scoreboard with an infield hit from Orlando Diaz and a bloop single from Gordie Gronkowski that scored Diaz. JU added its second run to take a 2-1 lead on a RBI double from Rob Hudson to score Brett Nagy.
Chris Kelly extended the Dolphins’ lead to 3-1 in the fourth inning with a wind-blown home run to left field. JU added another run, 4-1, with a wind-blown home run in the sixth inning on a Gronkowski’s sixth home run of the season.
The Canes got one run back in the seventh inning after loading the bases with no outs on singles from Brain Barton and Gaby Sanchez, Joey Hooft grounded into a 4-3 double play to score Jim Burt who had walked.
George Huguet came on in the bottom of the seventh inning to replace Perez, who pitched a career-best six innings, allowing four runs on eight hits. Huguet took the loss, falling to 3-2 after working 2.2 innings.
