Mauro Gomez doubled and singled twice, knocking in both runs as the Gwinnett Braves topped the host Durham Bulls 2-1 on a rainy Monday night.
The result cut the Bulls’ lead in the International League’s South Division to 2 ½ games over the second-place G-Braves. Gwinnett now holds the presumptive wild-card spot by percentage points over Lehigh Valley.
Gomez had an RBI single in the first off Alex Torres (9-7), who finished the night with 149 strikeouts on the season and holds the Durham club record.
“He’s great when he’s consistent throwing strikes,” Bulls catcher Robinson Chirinos said of Torres. “Sometimes he just has one bad inning. But he’s been throwing good the whole year. We aren’t hitting right now, but that’s part of the game. Hopefully we come out tomorrow and score a lot of runs.”
After the Bulls got their run on a passed ball in the third, Gomez had an RBI single in the sixth to get Todd Redmond (10-8) the victory. Jairo Asencio collected his 24th save.
“It was well-pitched tonight,” said veteran Gwinnett manager Dave Brundage. “We squandered a couple of opportunities throughout the ball game. But this was a big win for us with our backs against the wall. Pitchers on both sides did a nice job dealing with the elements. Asencio was big, and Redmond certainly was. He was 0-3 against Durham and Torres was 3-0 against us.”
Leslie Anderson led the Bulls with two hits.
The teams’ final meeting of the season and the last Bulls home game of the regular season is on Tuesday night at 7:05, with southpaw Johan Flande (8-8, 3.88) going for the visitors while the Bulls starter has yet to be announced.
“Torres needs to make an adjustment to throw more strikes,” Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo said. “He’s got a big-league arm and he’s got guts, but he needs to throw more strikes. It’s always Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We need to score more runs against everybody, too. We can’t keep putting pressure on our pitching staff every night. It’s going to be a long six days if we don’t. We’ve got a great lineup, but you don’t win this game on paper.”
In other news the Bulls have called a lunch-time press conference for Tuesday, in which it is expected to be announced that Durham will host the 2012 Triple-A National Championship Game.
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