Salem, VA - Brian McFall belted his third home run of Wilmington's six-game road trip and drove in a Blue Rocks season-best five runs with a four-hit game as Wilmington defeated the Salem Avalanche 7-4 on Tuesday afternoon at Memorial Stadium. Rowdy Hardy proved mortal again, allowing four runs (three earned) over seven innings, but earned his league-leading 13th win of the season. Reliever Arthur Santos worked two scoreless frames out of the bullpen for his fourth save in four tries. Center fielder Jose Duarte doubled in the ninth for his 100th hit of the season. The game was delayed at the start by two hours and four minutes due to rain.McFall gave Wilmington its first four runs of the game, banging a double down the left-field line for a couple of runs in the opening inning, and slamming a two-run homer to left-center in the third. He would fall a triple shy of the cycle.
His batting heroics sandwiched a rare bloody inning for Hardy (13-2). The southpaw allowed the first three batters of the inning to reach, all on base hits. The third of which, a first-pitch swinging double off the bat of prospect Chris Johnson, went for a two-run double. A strikeout and an error later, Eric King drove in the third tally with an opposite-way single to right field for a brief 3-2 Salem advantage.
Hardy would induce a 4-6-3 double play to escape the jam, one of a franchise record tying four twin killings twirled by the Blue Rocks on the game.
Wilmington added an insurance run in the seventh with a sacrifice fly from Mario Lisson, his team-leading 50th RBI of the season. That run proved necessary as Hardy surrendered a Salem score in the bottom half of that same frame. The Blue Rocks ace allowed eight hits and one walk over his seven innings with three strikeouts.
Nursing a one-run lead in the ninth, Lisson and McFall connected on back-to-back RBI hits for the three-run bulge that went final. McFall's hit was his fourth on the afternoon, and the run batted in his fifth, the most by any Blue Rock in a single affair all season.
Wilmington's three-game series concludes on Wednesday night with the rubber match commencing at 7:07 p.m. Blue Rocks righty Michael Penn (2-1, 3.34) opposes southpaw Chris Salamida (6-5, 5.03).
GAME NOTES:
Wilmington has homered in five straight games for the first time this season. The Blue Rocks have hit just one home run in each of the five contests, with Brad McCann doing the duty on Friday, Brian McFall on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday, and Kiel Thibault leaving the yard on Monday.
Tomorrow's game will be Wilmington's 100th of the season. Tuesday's win marked the Rocks' 50th victory of the year.
The Blue Rocks improved to 7-4 in day baseball with the win.
Rowdy Hardy went at least seven innings for the 10th time this season. In 20 games this season when their starter has gone at least seven frames, the Blue Rocks are an impressive 18-2, including 10-0 in the Hardy efforts.
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