07/18/2004 2:23 PM - KANSAS CITY – The T-Bones battled back from an early four-run deficit but let it slip away late in a 9-4 loss to Schaumburg Sunday night at CommunityAmerica Ballpark. Kansas City (20-28, 3-4) will be off until Thursday night when they travel to Joliet to begin an eight-game road trip.

The Flyers (31-17, 5-2) built their lead with single tallies in the first and second innings before breaking out with three in the fourth. Starting pitcher Greg Salvevold (2-0) picked up the win for Schaumburg despite allowing four runs in five innings. Jon McDonald (6-4) lasted just 3.2 innings, his shortest outing of the year, and was charged with the loss for the T-Bones.

Trailing 5-1 after three and a half innings, the T-Bones began their rally with a run in the bottom of the fourth when Rick Prieto homered for the second straight night to cut the lead to three. Eddie Pearson kept it going with a two-run shot of his own in the following inning that brought home Ray Brown and pulled Kansas City to within one, 5-4. But that’s as close as the T-Bones would get as the Flyers added four more runs in the eighth inning to close out the scoring.

Schaumburg got on board in the first inning thanks to an RBI-single by Kirk Pierce and took a 2-0 lead in the second when Geoff McCallum drove in Chris Weekly with a base hit to the right-field gap. The T-Bones countered when Mike Brown hit a one-out double to bring home Ray Brown in the third inning that made the score 2-1.

But the Flyers sent eight batters to the plate in the following frame and brought home three of them – highlighted by a two-run double into the corner in left field by Justin Hendrickson – that gave Schaumburg a 5-1 lead.

The T-Bones will have time to rest up during the Northern League All-Star break, which will run from Monday to Wednesday at Joliet. Pearson will compete in Monday night’s home run derby and will join D.J. Johnson on the South Division’s roster for the All-Star game Tuesday night.

Game Notes: With three singles in four at-bats, Cody Nowlin recorded his sixth three-hit game of the season. He has hit in five consecutive games and is batting .450 during that time… Prieto homered for the second straight night and has hit three home runs in his last 21 at-bats after hitting just one in his first 174 of the season… Pearson drove in two runs Sunday to increase his league-leading RBI total to 53 on the season. It has taken him just 55 games to match his home run total of his NL MVP campaign of a year ago.