Baseball: Jared Walker inspires Auckland Tuatara to victory over Geelong-Korea in series opener

Jared Walker was the hero for the Auckland Tuatara as they won their Australian Baseball League series opener against Geelong-Korea at North Harbour Stadium on Thursday night. 

Walker hit a pair of home runs and just missed a third to inspire Auckland to a 6-3 win. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers prospect now has five home runs this season.

Shortstop Yonny Hernandez and second baseman Kent Blackstone also drove in runs. as the Tuatara eased to their eighth successive win at North Harbour Stadium on the back of nine hits.

"We got off to a slow start," Tuatara manager Stephen Mintz admitted after the match."[Starting pitcher Kyohei] Muranaka wasn't as sharp as we know he can be and we made a couple of uncharacteristic errors.

"But Jared Walker got us back into the game and we got some good innings in relief from Emerson [Martinez] and Lucas [Jacobsen]."

Geelong-Korea took the lead early in the match, before Walker levelled the match with his first home run. 

After a scoreless second inning, Walker again came to the plate with a man aboard in the third and hit his second blast of the night to right field. Auckland had their first lead, 4-2.

They didn't look back, adding two more runs in the fourth to secure their win. 

The Tuatara improve to 13-12 and remain in first place of the northeast division.

The two sides meet again in game two of the series on Friday at 7pm.