ARTICLE TOOLS
Chattanooga: Turner enjoys new day
The last time Justin Turner played a Wednesday afternoon game at A&T Field, he was carted off by ambulance with a Grade 2 concussion.
Needless to say, he replaced that with a much better memory.
Turner went 5-for-5 and drove in three runs Wednesday in an 11-5 shredding of West Tenn. His two-run homer to right-center in the third inning put Chattanooga ahead to stay 2-1, and his RBI single to center in the seventh gave the Lookouts their largest lead at 11-4.
The second baseman went in a .250 hitter and came out at .282.
“He had a heck of a day,” Lookouts manager Mike Goff said. “All five of those balls except for one were squared up pretty good, which is nice to see. You see some multi-hit games where guys get some quails to fall in, but he only had one ball at the end of his bat. The rest of them were very good swings.
“It’s nice to see Turner coming alive.”
On June 4, Turner bolted from second to chase down a bloop single to right and slammed into Sean Henry’s knee. He immediately went on the disabled list and remained there for nearly two weeks.
“This was a lot better,” Turner said. “You don’t really want to look back at that kind of thing, so you just come out and try to play hard and hope nothing like that happens again. This felt pretty good.
“I’ve been swinging the bat really well the last couple of weeks, and it felt good to see the results come out of it.”
The Lookouts (7-8) also got big showings from catcher Craig Tatum, who went 3-for-4 with three RBIs, and from pitchers Camilo Vazquez and Robert Manuel. Vazquez allowed one run in five innings during his first start for the Lookouts, while Manuel worked scoreless seventh and eighth innings to lower his season ERA to a sparkling 1.21.
After making 32 starts for Chattanooga during the 2006-07 seasons, Vazquez had spent this season at high SIngle-A Sarasota until his promotion Tuesday.
“Vazquez had mostly been pitching out of the pen in Sarasota, and our best-case scenario for him today was five innings,” Goff said. “We were hoping to get three or four, but he gave us five innings, and I don’t think he realizes how huge that is for our bullpen right now. Our bullpen has been tortured for the last two weeks.”
Jordan Smith (1-4, 6.99) is scheduled to start tonight’s 6:15 series finale for the Lookouts, with Justin Thomas (5-5, 4.43) scheduled for the Diamond Jaxx. The game will be followed by fireworks and is expected to be the first AT&T sellout this season.
Lookouts owner Frank Burke said less than 1,500 tickets remain and that he would be surprised if there were any left by tonight’s first pitch.
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