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Sports

Gwinnett Braves Skid Continues

Bullpen collapses in Friday's loss.

With two teams playing with streaks going, one was hoping to end the streak while the other was hoping to extend the streak. came into Friday's contest with the Columbus Clippers on a 3-game losing skid after a hot streak on the road. Columbus was riding a hot 8-game winning streak. Rodrigo Lopez was hoping to end the skid as the crafty veteran was going for his fifth win of the year.

But Columbus scored two in the eighth inning and three in the ninth to rally from a 5-3 defict and win 8-5 to extend the G-Braves losing streak to four games. The last time Gwinnett was swept in a 4-game series was last July 7 - July 10, 2010 against Charlotte at .

Columbus got on the board first when Jason Kipnis hit a sharp hit up the middle that was originally scored an error but later changed to a hit. Jerad Head singled and Luke Carlin reached on an error by first baseman Mauro Gomez. Lopez got Luis Valbuena to pop out to shorstop but Lopez wildpitched a run home before retiring Ezequiel Cabrera on strikes.

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Gwinnett promptly came back in the bottom of the third as catcher J.C. Boscan drew a leadoff walk and went to second on a single by Jose Constanza. After a wild pitch moved the runners up, centerfielder Jordan Shafer's sacrifice bunt plated the run to tie the game 1-1.

The Clippers again took the lead on a leadoff homerun by Kipnis in the fourth but after a single by Head, Lopez got the next three hitters to keep it a 2-1 deficit.

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Gwinnett reclaimed the lead with three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Third baseman Shawn Bowman got hit by the pitch to lead off the inning. Boscan singled and Jose Constanza drove home Bowman when he reached on an error. After Boscan got picked off second base, Matt Young tripled home Constanza and scored himself on a Gomez single to give the G-Braves a 4-2 lead.

But again Columbus came back. In the top of the sixth with two outs, Valbuena doubled and scored on a Carrera single to cut the lead to 4-3. Lopez's night was finished with 5 2/3 innings giving up nine hits, three runs and six strikeouts. Lopez had 105 pitches with 66 strikes. Columbus pitcher Corey Kluber pitched five innings giving up 4 runs and with five strikeouts and two walks. He pitched 93 pitches with 58 strikes.

Gwinnett added an extra run in the seventh as Boscan led off with a walk, moved to second on a sacrifice by Constanza and scored on Shafer's RBI single to give Gwinnett a 5-3 lead. Again Columbus would not quit as Carlin got a 2-out single in the eighth off Juan Abreu and came home on a 2-run homerun by Valbuena to tie the game at 5-5.

Luke Carlin doubled with the bases loaded to break the 5-5 tie in the top of the ninth off Stephen Marek (0-1), the fourth Gwinnett reliever. Josh Judy pitched the ninth to record the save, his third of the year. Zach Putnam picked up the win in relief pitching two innings. Gwinnett Falls to 13-8 on the year.

"When you are playing good teams you can' make mistakes," said Gwinnett Manager Dave Brundage. "When you do make mistakes, they get exposed. It's unfortunate we pick a night where guys give up their first runs of the season, both on the same night and all with two outs."  The middle of the lineup went 0-15. "You are not going to  have guys one through nine all hit if you did than  you wouldn't have the score be what it's at," Brundage said. "if you have everybody hitting and working on all cylinders, its obvious when we won seven games in a row we got contributions from everyone. One night it was the bottom of the order, the other it was the top of the order."

Gwinnett will play Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for a weekend series starting tonight at 7 p.m. at Coolray Field.

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