06/28/2005 10:44 PM - Click here to view the box score.

For the second consecutive night, the Kansas City T-Bones took an early lead in their game against the St. Paul Saints. Monday night, they held on. Tuesday night, the St. Paul Saints scored seven runs in the sixth inning or later and hung on to beat the T-Bones, 8-5, and increase their lead in the South Division to 1 1/2 games.

Kansas City's third inning started with Chad Sosebee being nailed by a Darren Truty pitch. Sosebee scored all the way from first on Rick Prieto's double to left-center and Greg Jacobs brought Prieto home with a double two batters later. With two outs, Brandon Jones capped the T-Bones scoring with a single to left to plate Jacobs and give Kansas City a 3-1 lead.

But the Saints would fight back, with two runs in the sixth to tie the game against T-Bones starter Jon McDonald. A run-scoring ground out by Billy Munoz and a Nick Gretz single tied the game for the Saints, who would score the go-ahead run in the next inning on a Jeremy Frost single to center.

St. Paul had gotten on the board first with a second-inning Josh Renick single that scored Munoz, who had led off the inning with a double against McDonald. McDonald (L, 3-3) worked seven innings in the contest, allowing four earned runs while striking out two. McDonald left in the eighth inning with runners on first and second and none out, but relievers J.C. Ortiz and Adam Clay stifled the Saints.

In spite of the inspiring performance by the middle relievers, Kansas City couldn't muster any offense in the middle innings against Saints reliever Brian Steffek (W, 3-2), who hurled 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief while striking out four. St. Paul scored four in the top of the ninth against T-Bones reliever Caleb Balbuena, with a run-scoring triple by Kris Cox the big blow in the final frame. Cox enjoyed a night for the Saints in which he had three hits in four trips to the plate and was just a homer short of the cycle.

The T-Bones fought back in the bottom of the ninth with David Segui's second hit as a T-Bone, a two-run single to center that scored Rick Prieto and Eric Vega, but couldn't get any closer in the game against Saints reliever Matt Hammons.

Notes: Mike Brown was hitless in the contest to end his hitting streak at seven games. Brown had hit .500 (14-for-28) in the previous seven games... in his first outing from the bullpen in 2005, Balbuena allowed four runs on five hits in the ninth inning... Jones had two hits in four at-bats for the T-Bones, and narrowly missed a fifth-inning homer... Rick Prieto reached base in four of five plate appearances, walking twice and smacking two hits.