By ERIC BENEVIDES

Sports writer

PAWTUCKET --- His control may have been off for most of the afternoon, but that didn’t prevent Pawtucket Red Sox knuckleballer Charlie Zink from picking up his first victory in two months.
Zink pitched four-hit ball and scattered six walks and a hit batsman through six innings of work on Sunday to help the PawSox turn away the hot-hitting Columbus Clippers, 3-2, at McCoy Stadium.
Zink, who was last year’s International League Pitcher of the Year, entered the contest owning an 0-7 record and a 7.65 ERA in his last eight starts and facing the league’s top hitting club (.283). But what seemed like a recipe for disaster turned out to be the opposite for Zink and the PawSox.
“That’s a very good offensive ballclub over there, and Charlie -- to do what he did today -- I was very pleased with everything,” PawSox manager Ron Johnson offered. “He had better feel and better tempo, and his delivery was much more controlled.”
Zink didn’t strike out any batters for the third straight start, but he received a nice hand from his infield, which helped recorded 10 groundball outs, and some key run-scoring hits from Chris Duncan, Jeff Natale, and Chris Carter that allowed him to exit the game with a lead.
“I felt pretty good,” said Zink, who is 5-11. “I was once again blown away by the amount of walks I had, but I guess when you have one an inning, it can add up. But I never really worried about it. I had really good movement today and I just figured I could get a groundball any time someone got on.”
Zink, whose last victory was on May 27 when he teamed with two relievers on a one-hit shutout of the Louisville Bats, was opposed on the mound by Fausto Carmona, who two seasons ago, was 19-8 for the Cleveland Indians and fourth in the voting for the American League Cy Young Award.
Carmona was 2-6 with a 7.42 ERA in 12 starts for the Tribe this year before getting demoted to the minors on June 5, but on Sunday, he showed flashes of brilliance by striking out five batters and allowing six hits and two walks in seven innings of work.
Columbus armed Carmona with a 1-0 lead in the second when Andy Marte drew a one-out walk and sped home on a double by Andy Cannizaro that he belted over the head of center fielder Freddy Guzman and to the wall. 
But Duncan, who was playing in his third game with Pawtucket since being acquired in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals last Thursday, tied the score at 1-1 by leading off the bottom of the inning with a homer belted deep into the picnic area in right.
An inning later, Natale gave the hosts the lead with a run-scoring double to the gap in left-center that drove in Ivan Ochoa, and in the fifth, Ochoa came home again on a hard-hit single to right by Carter. 
When Zink left the game after throwing 97 pitches (only 50 for strikes), the bullpen sealed the verdict with another fine showing, as Rocky Cherry and Hunter Jones teamed up to limit Columbus to a hit and a walk over the next three innings. Jones ended up earning his second save of the year.
Leadoff role suit Natale just fine
When Pawtucket returned home from their road trip to Rochester last week, Johnson decided to move Natale into the leadoff spot and slide speedster Freddy Guzman, who has 11 hits in his last 80 at-bats, down in the batting order.
And in the three games of the PawSox’s series with the Clippers, Natale has thrived, going 6-for-14 to raise his average to .271. 
“Freddy’s struggling right now,” said Johnson, “and when you look at your team and (wonder) who’s the next guy who can work the count, work an at-bat, I don’t know if we have anyone who can do it as well as Natale.”
Natale, who had been out for more than a month with a strained oblique, is also 10-for-29 in his last eight games, and entered this season with a career .436 on-base percentage in four minor-league seasons and 250 walks in 358 games.
“He’s going to get 25 pitches if he gets four at-bats and he’s going to square some balls up,” added Johnson. “I’ve been very pleased with what he’s done the last few days.”   
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Notes: All-Star closer Fernando Cabrera, who returned home this weekend to Toa Baja, Puerto Rico to be with his wife for the birth of their daughter, is expected to rejoin the PawSox today. … Carter, who was the only PawSox player with two hits on Sunday, has three home runs and eight RBIs in his last seven games. His .268 average is tops on the team for players with more than 120 at-bats. … When Zink hit Cannizaro with a pitch in the fourth, it marked the 22nd time he had plunked a batter with a pitch this year. … That number doubled the old PawSox single-season record for HBPs with 11, set by Danny Parks in 1981. … The PawSox will finish their four-game series with the Clippers with a 12:05 p.m. matinee affair that will feature PawSox southpaw Kris Johnson (3-11, 6.37) and Clippers lefty Zach Jackson (4-7, 5.38) on the mound. After the game, the PawSox will hit the road for a four-game series against the Buffalo Bisons and two games against the first-place Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.
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Columbus    010    001    000 -- 2-5-1
Pawtucket    011    010    00x -- 3-7-0
Fausto Carmona, Rafael Perez (8) and Damaso Espino; Charlie Zink, Rocky Cherry (7), Hunter Jones (8) and Dusty Brown. 2B -- Andy Cannizaro (C), Jeff Natale (P), Trevor Crowe (C). HR -- Chris Duncan (P), Andy Marte (C).