SENATORS GAME RECAP

The Harrisburg Senators rode strong pitching and a big fourth inning to a 5-4 triumph over the Reading Phillies Sunday afternoon at Commerce Bank Park. Marco Estrada struck out seven in five innings of work to pick up the win and Ian Desmond drove in four runs for Harrisburg.

The Phillies jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Javon Moran started the game with an infield single and scored when Jason Donald followed with an RBI double.

Harrisburg tied the game on Desmond’s RBI groundout in the bottom of the second inning. They kept it rolling with a big bottom of the fourth. With Andrew LeFave at first, Desmond golfed a two-run homer just inside the left-field foul pole to make it 3-1. Two batters later, Mike Daniel drove a solo home run to left-center, giving Harrisburg a 4-1 advantage.

After the Phillies scored a run on a double-steal in the fifth, the Senators tallied another run in the bottom of the fifth. Desmond slapped a two-out RBI single to right, scoring LeFave to extend the lead to 5-2.

Reading closed the gap with single runs in the sixth and seventh innings, but Beltran Perez worked a 1-2-3 eighth and Zech Zinicola nailed down his first save as a Senator with a scoreless ninth inning.

Estrada moved to 3-2 with the win. Former Senator Kip Bouknight took the loss to drop to 2-3.

The Senators took two out of three in the series to improve to 19-10. Reading fell to 14-15.

The Senators welcome the Connecticut Defenders (Double-A San Francisco Giants) to Commerce Bank Park on Monday for the first of a four-game series. Game time is set for 6:05 PM.