Greensboro-Greenville: Battle of Second Place Teams
0
0
0
0
Coming into tonight both Greensboro and Greenville and in second place in their respective divisions coming into tonight’s matchup. Both teams also came into tonight one game back of first place in the SAL North and South divisions. It was Po-Yu Chen who got the ball for Greensboro in tonight’s matchup. Chen got his eleventh start tonight against the Drive. Chen had a 2-4 record, 4.73 ERA 51 strikeouts in 51.1 inning s of work coming into tonight. It was Hunter Dobbins who got the nod tonight for the seventh time, Dobbins is 4-1 with a 2.57 ERA, 36 strikeouts in 35 innings of work coming into tonight.
The bats were quiet to start the first two innings of the game, only one hit for each side through the first two frames were recorded. It was Greensboro who responded first in the top of the third inning that Greensboro struck first with a run of their own behind three hits and a Tres Gonzalez RBI single to left field. it was then in the home half of the inning that Greenville responded with three runs of their own to take a 3-1 lead into the fourth inning. Roman Anthony brought home Alex Erro to get the Drive on the board, and then Blaze Jordan hit a moonshot over the left field wall to put the Drive up 3-1.
It was Greensboro who responded back in the top half of the sixth inning with a leadoff single by Mike Jarvis and a costly error that allowed Jarvis to advance to second base. Jase Brown would hit a RBI single the very next pitch to put the Grasshoppers down by one run, 3-2.
Hunter Dobbins pitched six complete innings, giving up seven hits, one walk, two runs, and seven strikeouts to position himself for the win tonight. It was Aaron Perry who came on in the top half of the seventh to relieve Dobbins fresh out of the bullpen. The Grasshoppers came into the seventh and wasted no time. Wyatt Hendrie walked to lead off the inning, Will Matthiessen got a base hit and then Mike Jarvis got a two out RBI double to tie the game at three runs a piece. Nathan Landry then came out of the pen for the Drive with two outs and runners on second and third. However, Landry could not get the job done as the first batter he faced was Jase Bowen, and Bowen hit a three run moon shot to straight away center field to put Greensboro up 6-3.
It was in the home half of the eight, down by three runs the Drive responded very quickly, putting together fours hits in a row that started with a Max Ferguson single, Blaze Jordan then singled, Bryan Gonzalez then brought the first run home on an RBI single, then stole second on an attempted pick off at first. Ronald Rosario then got an RBI base knock to put the Drive only down one run. Eddinson Paulino then grounded into a double play but was enough to bring the tying run home to make it six runs all into the ninth inning.
Graham Hoffman then came into the ninth inning out of the bullpen for the Drive, striking out three of the four batters he faced, and only allowing one hit (2 out single).
Eduardo Lopez got things started with a leadoff looper to right field for Greenville in the home half of the ninth. Alex Erro responded with another base hit to put runners on first and second with no outs for the Drive. Eduardo Lopez then advanced to third on a passed ball. Greensboro tried to call an unprecedented change, adding two position players to the infield (5 total infielders), Roman Anthony is able to beat out the run due to the dropped ball by the 2nd baseman. The Drive walk it off 7-6.
The Drive improves to 34-27 and Greensboro falls to 33-26. The six games series with Greensboro will continue tomorrow night at 7:05 p.m. Eastern time at Flour Field.
