MOBILE – Greg Ross hurled yet another fine outing, and the Mississippi Braves held on to beat the Mobile BayBears 2-1 on Wednesday night at Hank Aaron Stadium.

With the win and Pensacola’s 4-1 loss to Biloxi, the M-Braves (27-19, 60-54) took sole possession of first place with 24 games remaining in the regular season. They lead Pensacola by a game and Mobile by 1.5 games in the South Division race.

Ross (7-9) allowed just a run on four hits over 7 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking one to pick up the win. It was his eighth quality start in his last nine outings.

He was matched by Mobile (25-20, 59-55) starter Braden Shipley (8-9) until the 7th inning. Shipley walked Levi Hyams to start the inning and gave up a double to Kevin Ahrens for men at second and third.

After KD Kang and Sean Godfrey struck out, Rio Ruiz smacked a two-run single to right field to give the M-Braves the lead for good.

Shipley allowed just two runs on three hits over 6 2/3 innings, striking out nine and walking one in the loss. He took a perfect game into the fifth before Kang broke it up with a single to lead off the inning.

Mobile made things interesting down the stretch. Stewart Ijames hit a pinch-hit home run off Ross, his third of the season, to cut the lead to 2-1 in the eighth inning.

In the ninth, Garrett Weber and Rudy Flores knocked a pair of singles against reliever Kyle Kinman. Tyler Jones (S, 13) came on and threw a wild pitch to put the tying and winning runs into scoring position, but pinch-hitter Ronnie Freeman lined out to Jones to end the game and preserve the win.

The Braves will try to hold first place on Thursday night against Mobile, a 7:05 p.m. first pitch from Hank Aaron Stadium pitting right-hander Zack Bird (1-0, 0.84) against right-hander Edgar Garcia (3-0, 4.56).

by M-Braves Sports Media Relations