COLUMBUS – The Clippers won the third game of a four-game home-and-home series with the Toledo Mud Hens, 5-4, thanks to a tie-breaking double by Brandon Barnes in the eighth inning at Huntington Park.
The win brought Columbus back to within three games of the International League West Division-leading Mud Hens and a game and a half behind second-place Indianapolis, where the Clippers head to play three games before the AAA All-Star break.
After the Clippers jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning in front of a Fourth of July crowd of nearly 10,000, Toledo clawed back, scoring four runs in the second, third and fourth innings to take a one-run lead which vanished in the fifth when Drew Maggi scored on Yandy Diaz’s double to right field.
With one out in the eighth, Maggi came through again, stealing second base and scoring on Barnes’s double to right. Barnes also hit a two-run home run in the first inning.
Ben Taylor (5-1), the fifth Clippers pitcher of the night, got the win while Zac Houston was saddled with the loss (0-1).
The teams split the first two games of the series in Toledo and play the finale Thursday night.