CarL1 Salem Red Sox

Hee belts two-run dinger as Sox snap eight-game skid

August 3, 2009 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Salem Red Sox News Release


Salem, VA (August 3, 2009) - Salem erupted for six runs in the first two innings, highlighted by Jon Hee's second pro homer, and the Red Sox snapped their eight-game losing streak with an 8-4 victory over Myrtle Beach to open a three-game set at Lewis-Gale Field. Stephen Fife worked five innings to earn his second Carolina League win, taking advantage of the early run support from the Sox. Although the Pelicans scrapped a run off Fife in the first, the Red Sox responded to four of their own in the bottom of the inning. Hee's two-run bomb made it 6-1 after two and the teams traded a bunch of single-run frames over the final half of the contest to result in the ultimate score.

Salem brought a quick punch to Myrtle starter Cole Rohrbough, whose 1-0 lead quickly evaporated. Che-Hsuan Lin walked and Hee singled to put two batters aboard right out of the gates. After Daniel Nava lined out sharply to the shortstop, Mike Jones belted a gapper to the wall in left-center, resulting in a two-run double and Salem's first lead. Two batters later, Chih-Hsien Chiang tripled to the right-center field gap to make it 3-1. A few pitches after then, Chiang scampered home on a wild toss from Rohrbough to make it 4-1.

Fife proceeded to throw four zeroes up on the board over his final four innings of work. Although he walked his first two Carolina League batters (Fife had not walked anybody in his first three CL starts), he only yielded one hit after the first. Randy Gress singled down the left field line in the fourth, but was thrown out by David Mailman as he aimed to stretch it into a double. Fife struck out four and only allowed two hits and one run in five innings of work, lowering his ERA to 1.99.

Hee's two run blast down the left-field line gave Salem plenty of cushion, but the Pelicans would not go away. Red Sox pitchers did not enjoy a single 1-2-3 frame all game, but the home team hurlers got the outs when it counted. Despite outhitting Salem 10-8, Myrtle went just 3-19 with runners in scoring position and left 12 runners on base. Red Sox errors allowed a couple unearned tallies to score, but the Pelicans stranded multiple runners aboard in each of the last three innings, including the bases loaded in the ninth.

Armando Zerpa pitched two innings in relief, yielding two runs (one earned), while Derrick Loop tossed the final two frames and surrendered a single unearned run. Loop lowered his ERA to 1.75 on the season.

It took the Red Sox nine tries, but they finally have their 50th win of the season. At 50-54 for the year and 18-18 in the half, Salem looks to increase their lead over Myrtle Beach in the Southern Division wild card race on Tuesday night. Seth Garrison, who led the Carolina League in ERA in July, takes the hill for the Red Sox against Pelicans' righthander Jacob Thompson, who has only allowed one run in 13 innings against Salem this season. The showdown is set for 7:05 at Lewis-Gale Field.

Check out the Salem Red Sox Statistics



Carolina League Stories from August 3, 2009


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