Baseball: Auckland Tuatara win double-header against Melbourne Aces

  • 19/01/2019
Te Wera Bishop.
Te Wera Bishop in action for the Auckland Tuatara. Photo credit: Photosport

The Auckland Tuatara claimed back-to-back wins against the Melbourne Aces in their Australian Baseball league double-header on Friday night.

After topping the Aces 2-1 in extra-innings in game one at Melbourne Ballpark, they went onto win the second match 5-3.

A Te Wera Bishop home run, quality start from Josh Collmenter and some sound relief-pitching from Yuki Harada set up the Tuatara's victory in the early game.

Melbourne took the lead in the top of the second before Bishop tied things up in the third.

The match then went into extra innings, and in the end a throwing error allowed the Tuatara to score the winning run after starting the inning with runners at first and second, under tiebreak rules.

Matt Wilson scored the winning run for Auckland.

In the second match Auckland raced out to an early 3-0 lead in fourth, but the Aces plated three runs in the fifth to tie things up.

The Tuatara scored twice in the bottom of the sixth to take the lead - Max Brown stealing a pair of bags and scoring the go-ahead run.

The Tuatara will look to secure a maiden series win with victory in either of the double-header games on Saturday that will also complete their inaugural season in the Australian Baseball League.

Newshub.