2 Mud Hens are heroes in 10-inning victory

The Mud Hens' David Espinosa is greeted by his teammates after hitting a home run last night at Fifth Third Field.

The heroes in the Mud Hens' 3-1, 10-inning victory over Pawtucket last night were pretty obvious.

One was Toledo starter Chad Durbin, who gave a beleaguered bullpen a rest by covering nine innings and allowing just one run to keep the Hens in the game. The other was Dustan Mohr, who hit a pinch-hit, two-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the 10th.

So which player was the bigger hero?

"We'll give both of them a star for this one," Mud Hens manager Larry Parrish said.

The game itself probably deserves as star, seeing as it snapped Toledo's three-game losing streak and gave the Hens just their third victory in the last 12 games. What's more, it came against a Pawtucket team that had won four in a row and came into this four-game series with a 10-4 record since the All-Star break.

The start of last night's game, while not as bad as Durham's 10-run first-inning eruption Monday, was still a little rocky as the Red Sox took just eight pitches to score a run.

Durbin hit Adam Stern with the second pitch of the game, and three pitches later Willie Harris doubled Stern to third. Dustin Pedroia scored Stern on a sacrifice fly to center.