CURVE, Pa. – Mitch Jebb and Konnor Griffin each had three hits and an RBI, but Altoona fell 8-4 to the Reading Fightin Phils on Thursday night at Peoples Natural Gas Field. With Harrisburg’s loss at Erie, the Curve remain one game up in the Southwest Division.

Altoona’s offense racked up 12 hits and four walks, but batted just 4-for-13 with runners in scoring position and stranded ten men on the basepaths. Duce Gourson drove in Altoona’s first run in the fourth inning with an RBI double off Reading starter Charles King. Gourson added a single in the sixth inning and recorded his ninth multi-hit game for the team since arriving on June 25th.

Alessandro Ercolani suffered the loss despite matching his season-long outing at 5.2 innings. Ercolani began his outing with four scoreless frames before allowing a two-run homer to Aidan Miller and an RBI double to Jose Rodriguez in the fifth inning. Ercolani struck out three and tossed a season-high 87 pitches, 52 strikes.

Reading’s Aidan Miller recorded his first career multi-homer game with a two-run shot in the fifth and a solo shot in the seventh. Leandro Pineda hit back-to-back shots with Miller in the seventh inning. The Fightin Phils scored five times across their final three innings at the plate.

Altoona scored four times in the bottom of the ninth, using RBI singles from Jebb, Griffin and a fielder’s choice from Esmerlyn Valdez. Valdez has a .386 on-base percentage in 16 games in the month of August, driving in nine runs.

Since August 3, Jebb is batting .373 (22-for-59) with a .443 on-base percentage across his last 15 games.