Shelton's homer lifts RedHawks to victory

ROUND ROCK, Texas — It took the Round Rock Express two dramatic innings to have a chance to win Monday night — and one pitch to take it all away.

Chris Shelton's home run to lead off the top of the 12th gave Oklahoma a 5-4 win over Round Rock and negated a potentially remarkable comeback from a team fighting to show life in the season's waning moments.

There have been precious few occasions this year when the Express hasn't struggled at the plate, and those struggles almost reached a critical point Monday. At least, that was before Round Rock put on a rare show of offensive force. The Express entered the night next to the bottom of the Pacific Coast League in hitting. For seven innings they were, again, being smoked — ironic on a night when the giveaway was a headband featuring "Willie Nelson braids." Round Rock had scored only two runs in the previous two games and had scored in only one of the previous 32 innings, and none in the last 15, entering Monday's eighth inning. Oklahoma (73-64) held a seemingly comfortable 4-0 lead, but Nick Gorneault carved that in half with a lined homer over the left field wall.

The Express (61-75) completed the comeback with two more in the ninth. With one out, Edwin Maysonet walked and J.R. Towles singled. J.R. House then scored one with a RBI single to right. That chased Kiko Calero and brought in Wes Littleton. Mark Saccomanno fought off a tough inside pitch to flare a single to center to score Towles and send the game to extra innings.

Neither side showed much until the 12th, when Shelton sent a Dave Borkowski pitch just over the left field wall for his 11th home run.

Saccomanno came tantalizingly close to matching Shelton leading off the bottom of the inning, but his drive to left ended with left fielder John Mayberry making the catch with literally his back against the wall. Kazuo Fukumori got the last two outs to finally end the game.

The comeback cost RedHawks starter Tommy Hunter the win. Last year, the Texas Rangers' historically bad rotation forced him into the major leagues ahead of schedule. He started 2007 with Class-A Bakersfield, moved to Double-A Frisco after six weeks and then to the RedHawks at the beginning of July. He was brought up for a three-start stint with Texas in early August, but was clearly not ready. He was 0-3 with a 16.36 ERA in three starts.

He appears to have regained his form at Oklahoma, where his development schedule says he probably should be. He cruised through the Express lineup, overcoming some early wildness to throw 62/3 scoreless innings. He walked two in the first inning, but struck out Ray Sadler to get out of his only real threat.

Round Rock starter Josh Miller avoided disaster to put together a quality start, but wasn't quite dominating. The three runs in six innings was good, the eight hits, including a home run by Max Ramirez was not.

Mark Swanson is a correspondent for the Austin American-Statesman.