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Wilmington Blue Rocks

Persistent Pelicans Pull Past Rocks

July 22, 2016 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


Myrtle Beach, SC -- The Wilmington Blue Rocks rallied back from a pair of early deficits, but could not manage a third comeback effort on Friday. Two fifth-inning runs put the Myrtle Beach Pelicans ahead to stay in a 6-3 win at TicketReturn.com Field. The Rocks committed three defensive miscues, while Matt Tenuta walked five and allowed five runs in four frames to take the loss. Wilmington has dropped seven of its last eight and 13 of the previous 16 games.

Tenuta allowed lead-off hits in each of the first two innings, which both resulted in runs. Charcer Burks opened the game with a double, got sacrificed to third and came home on Yasiel Balaguert's sacrifice fly to center. David Bote then started the second with a single, moved to second on Ian Rice's walk and scored on Tyler Pearson's RBI single. Burkes added to the advantage on a run-scoring single to right.

Wilmington got on the board in the second courtesy of an RBI single off the bat of Elier Hernandez. The Rocks then tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the fifth thanks to some good fortune. With runners at second and third and two outs, Robert Pehl lifted a fly ball into shallow center that Rashad Crawford never saw. As a result the ball dropped in for a two-run bloop-double.

Myrtle Beach wasted little time regaining the lead. Tenuta walked the first two batters of the frame before being removed in favor of Brennan Henry. The lefty reliever fanned Balagert, but then allowed an infield single by Bote that combined with an errant toss by Pehl to plate a run. Ian Rice followed with an RBI double to increase the lead to 5-3.

The Pelicans added an insurance run in the seventh on a two-out single by Jeffrey Baez. Tenuta took the loss, while Trevor Clifton yielded just three runs on five hits with six strikeouts to pick up the win. Ryan McNeil recorded the final four outs to nail down his 14th save of the season.

Wilmington continues its four-game series in Myrtle Beach on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. Neither team has named its starting pitcher yet.

PEBBLES OF KNOWLEDGE:

Robert Pehl continues to be a doubles machine this season. His blooper got lost in the lights by centerfielder Rashad Crawford on Friday, scoring a pair of runs in the fifth. It was his 37th hit of the season and his 15th two-bagger. The utility man, who has played six different positions in 2016, has knocks in four consecutive games, raising his batting average by 12 points.

Friday was a rare rough night for the Rocks on the Grand Strand. Wilmington has won eight of the teams' 14 meetings in 2016. The Pelicans are the only club the Blue Crew have a winning record against. Wilmington is 4-2 at TicketReturn.com Field this season, also the only ballpark where the Rocks are above .500. The key to success has been the pitching staff, which has posted a scant 3.12 ERA against the Pelicans. That's more than a run-and-a-half lower than Wilmington's overall earned run average in 2016.

Elier Hernandez has been hitting the ball harder in the second half and finally was rewarded with a dinger on Friday. It was the outfielder's first home run since April 14 at Potomac, snapping a string of 80 straight games without a long ball. Hernandez also doubled in a run, going 2-for-4 with two extra-base hits and two RBI on the evening. He followed that effort up with two more hits and a run scored on Saturday. After walking and scoring a run on Sunday, Hernandez turned in two additional knocks on both Monday Tuesday and Thursday before posting his sixth two-hit performance in the last seven games on Friday. Hernandez now has 18 multi-hit performances in 2016--the second-most among all active Blue Rocks. The second-year Rock and top-30 prospect in the Royals organization, has also excelled in the field. He threw out a Hillcat trying to stretch a single into a double last Saturday just 24 hours after cutting down a Red Sox runner at the plate. Hernandez leads the Blue Rocks with six outfield assists in 2016.

Brandon Downes got aggressive on the base paths on Friday. The speedy outfielder worked a walk in the second inning and promptly swiped second base, allowing him to score the Rocks' first run. He then singled in the sixth and stole second base again. It marked the seventh time this season that a Blue Rock has stolen two bags in one game. Downes is second among active Wilmington players with 12 swipes in 18 tries. The free pass was Downes' ninth of the month, the most he has managed in any single month this season.

THEY SAID IT, MANAGER JAMIE QUIRK:

"Well Matt (Tenuta) had to work way too hard. He walked five guys and he had to work way too hard. He was in constant traffic almost every inning and that puts extra pressure on you and the stress factor raises and so too do your number of pitches. That was the problem. Just battling way too hard to get outs."

"Well Matt is having trouble putting guys away. His fastball was a little flat and his changeup was nice, but it's just a matter of putting guys away. That's why they get those long counts against him. He just hasn't been able to put guys away and they end up with these long at bats against him and if they wind up on base, now you're battling and you're stressed out on the mound. That's been the situation all year that he's had to throw too many pitches to get out.

"(Trevor Clifton) is a good pitcher. He's got good breaking stuff with a lively fastball and he kept us off-balanced all night. We never were really all that comfortable in the batters box against him and we didn't have a lot of good swings. Even when we had those guys there on second and third and brought them in, it wasn't a good swing, just a missed play ball out in centerfield. In the first game of the series we had three sacrifice flies and did a good job with situational hitting. The second game of the series here we just didn't have a lot of production at the plate."

"We wanted to run against Clifton. He's slow to the plate. The pickoffs were just bad base running. As slow as he is to the plate, you still can't just go on the first movement. You don't have to cheat. If he lifted his leg up high we were going, but the problem was we were anticipating. You can't just anticipate because he went slidestep too. If he slidesteps you just shut it down. We got a little flat-footed there on two occasions and that cost us a couple of baserunners."

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