Mobile pulls out 7-4 win

Jaime Pedroza and Jerry Sands both homered Thursday night at AT&T Field, but their Chattanooga Lookouts couldn’t overcome a botched eighth inning.

Pedroza hit a line-drive shot to left-center field in the first inning and Sands hit a monster homer in the fifth as the Lookouts tried for their third straight win in their first home game since July 10.

But the Mobile BayBears scored four runs in the eighth — two coming on a triple — and won 7-4 in front of a small crowd of 2,570.

“We just did a bad job and we’ve got to execute,” Lookouts manager Carlos Subero said. “We’ve got to execute and play better baseball.”

The Lookouts (12-15 in the second half, 45-51 overall) led 4-2 after five innings and 4-3 entering the eighth.

Kory Casto led off the inning with a double off reliever David Pfeiffer, which led to a pitching change. Eric Krebs came in and got a flyout and walked a batter before Taylor Harbin came to bat with two on and one away.

Harbin drilled a pitch to deep left-center that was deflected by center fielder Kyle Russell, scoring two runs. Harbin was 2-for-4 with four RBIs in the game.

“We had a few balls tonight that should have been caught,” Subero said of the Lookouts, who had two errors and three wild pitches.

Harbin held up at third and scored moments later on a wild pitch. The Lookouts had an error and another wild pitch before Ed Easley scored on a single to make it 7-4.

“We’re almost through the month of July and you let a game slip like that? It’s definitely not a good thing,” Subero said.

Mobile (16-11, 52-43) had 12 hits to the Lookouts’ nine, and six BayBears had two hits each.

Pedroza’s first-inning homer would have been a two-run shot, but leadoff hitter Dee Gordon was picked off at first base. Gordon, who went 3-for-3, was caught stealing later in the game.

Russell led off the bottom of the third with a single and later scored to make it 2-0 on a Pedroza ground ball.

The BayBears got a run across in the fourth when Harbin hit a high bouncer up the middle with runners on the corners. The ball bounced off the top of pitcher Tim Sexton’s glove for an infield single that scored Konrad Schmidt from third.

The Lookouts got an unearned run in the fourth to go up 3-1 and Sands’ shot made it 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth. After that, not much went right for the Lookouts.

Kyler Newby (1-1, 3.89 ERA) is scheduled to start tonight’s 7:15 game for the Lookouts, with Aaron Miller (0-3, 5.29) scheduled for the BayBears.