John Valentin had the right idea.
With a heat index of 104 degrees during the second inning of Sunday afternoon’s game at AT&T Field, Chattanooga’s hitting coach was ejected from the dugout by plate umpire Gerard Ascani for arguing balls and strikes. The Lookouts went on to beat Mobile 2-0, and Valentin was dressed casually in the clubhouse afterward offering pizza to the victors.
“He got to get his words in and then go enjoy the air conditioning,” Lookouts center fielder Kyle Russell said. “He’s probably had his feet up watching TV. I’m pretty jealous, but I’m going to be doing the same thing the rest of the day.”
The Lookouts improved to 14-16 in the Southern League’s second half after continuing their rebound from seven straight defeats with a fourth win in six games.
Sunday marked the Double-A debut for Lookouts starting pitcher Rubby (pronounced Ruby) De La Rosa, who joined the team last Thursday from the Single-A Midwest League. The 21-year-old right-hander from the Dominican Republic went 4-1 with a 3.19 earned run average in 14 games at Great Lakes, which included five starts.
His first start with the Lookouts was far from smooth, as he walked five of the first 10 batters, but he worked out of bases-loaded jams in the first two innings. De La Rosa ended the second inning by bare-handing Collin Cowgill’s broken-bat grounder and firing to second base to begin a double play.
“That was big,” pitching coach Danny Darwin said. “I thought that was the bat instead of the ball, and he showed good concentration and made a good throw. I don’t know him very well, but he’s one of those laid-back kind of kids who doesn’t let anything faze him. He made that throw like he’s done it 100 times.”
Things continued to brighten for the Lookouts in the third inning, when De La Rosa worked his first relatively smooth inning and then had an infield hit in his debut at-bat. He scored the game’s first run on Ramon Nivar’s two-out double down the right-field line.
Chattanooga made it 2-0 in the fourth inning when Eddy Perez homered off the scoreboard in left, and former Lookouts starter Mario Alvarez entered in the fifth and picked up the win, allowing two hits in three innings. Sunday’s game was played before an announced crowd of 1,355, the second smallest at AT&T this season.
“It was pretty hot sitting out there in center field,” Russell said. “You felt like you were in the middle of an oven, but it’s been like this every single day it seems, so we’re starting to get used to it.”
Brent Leach (5-2, 4.86) is scheduled to start tonight’s 7:15 series finale for the Lookouts, with Bryan Henry (3-2, 3.27) scheduled for the BayBears.