Ha. Ha. Ha. The Tennessee Smokies had the last laugh.
Jae-Hoon Ha’s two-run single to left field in the ninth inning capped a three-run rally Wednesday as Tennessee snatched a 5-3 victory from Chattanooga at AT&T Field. The Smokies opened the ninth with three grounders that got past the infield.
“They found their way through,” Lookouts closer Josh Lindblom said. “I thought I made some pretty good pitches, but maybe I caught too much plate on some of them. You don’t really want to get beat on bleeders, but it happens.”
Tennessee (24-16) won its second five-game series this season at AT&T and dropped Chattanooga (20-20) to .500 for the first time since May 5.
Lindblom leads the Lookouts with seven saves but has three opportunities in which he couldn’t convert. Wednesday’s outcome spoiled the chance for starting pitcher Chris Withrow to collect his first victory.
Withrow, rated by Baseball America as the No. 4 prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, went 4-9 with a 5.97 earned run average last season in Chattanooga and entered Wednesday with an 0-4 mark and a 6.12 ERA.
The 22-year-old from Midland, Texas, allowed five Smokies hits and struck out five in six innings, and he lowered his ERA to 5.23.
“As long as I go out there and keep the team in the game, I know the win will come,” Withrow said. “It would always be nice to get that monkey off your back, but you know that guys aren’t going out there and not trying.”
After allowing a Ha single up the middle and throwing a wild pitch to open the sixth inning, Withrow was able to block a sharp grounder by Ryan Flaherty. After Withrow gathered the ball and turned to first, he sailed the ball over the head of Scott Van Slyke, which resulted in Smokies on third and second.
Blake Lalli followed with a single to left that scored Ha and put Tennessee up 2-1, but Withrow regrouped with a nice play for a fielder’s choice at the plate with the bases loaded.
“The biggest thing with Withrow his past three starts is being able to stop the bleeding,” manager Carlos Subero said. “Before it would snowball on him, so it was nice to see him come out of that jam. Today he showed what you want to see, which is maturity.”
Ivan Ochoa’s sixth-inning single down the left-field line scored Brian Cavazos-Galvez and Matt Wallach to give Chattanooga its 3-2 lead. The Lookouts took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on consecutive one-out singles to right by Elian Herrera, Van Slyke and Kyle Russell.
Will Savage (4-0, 2.45 ERA) is scheduled to start Friday night’s series opener at Carolina, with Matt Klinker (1-2, 2.86) scheduled for the Mudcats.