Montano, Tovar lead Yard Goats past RubberDucks

Daniel Montano homered to left and Ezequiel Tovar scored on a two-out wild pitch by Luis Oviedo in the seventh inning to rally the Yard Goats to a 4-3 victory over the Akron RubberDucks on Saturday night before a crowd of 6,850 at Dunkin’ Donuts Park in Hartford. It was their 13th sellout of the season.

Akron opened the scoring in the third on a solo home run by Eric Rodriguez off Hartford’s starter

Michael Baird.

The Yard Goats responded quickly, scoring two runs in the bottom of the third. Tovar lined an RBI single into center field, scoring Isaac Collins, who led off the inning with a walk and stolen base. A single later in the inning by Michael Toglia knocked Akron’s starter Tanner Burns out of the game. With the bases loaded and two out, Tovar came home on a wild pitch by Jared Janczak to put Hartford in front, 2-1.

Raynel Delgado regained the lead for the RubberDucks with a two-run homer in the fourth.

Baird allowed four hits and three runs in six innings, striking out eight and walking one. Riley Pint (1-0) gave up two hits and no runs with two strikeouts in two innings for the win. Gavin Hollowell pitched a perfect ninth for his ninth save.

Burns gave up four hits and two runs in 2 ⅔ innings, striking out three and walking one. Janczak pitched only one-third of an inning, then Oviedo (0-2) allowed four hits and two runs in 3 ⅔ innings, striking out four and walking two for the loss.

The Yard Goats (40-22) moved a half-game behind Northeast Division-leading Somerset, which played later Saturday.

The Yard Goats, who are off to the best start in franchise history, continue the six-game series against the RubberDucks on Sunday at 1 p.m. They’ve won two in a row after losing the first three games of the series. LHP Nick Bush will start for the Yard Goats against RHP Gavin Williams.