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Wilmington Blue Rocks

Rocks Arms Punch Out Season High 17, but Bats Collect Just Two Hits in 4-0 Loss

June 29, 2016 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


Wilmington, DE- The Wilmington Blue Rocks (28-47/1-5) pitching staff recorded a season high 17 strikeouts against the Lynchburg Hillcats (47-28/2-3) on Tuesday night, but Hillcats' Sean Brady stifled the offense in a 4-0 loss. Rocks starter Zach Lovvorn led the way in the strikeout category by fanning a career high 10 Hillcats, but gave up four runs in 4.2 innings to drop to 0-9 on the year.

Lynchburg got on the board early for the second consecutive night, this time taking advantage of a Lovvorn error. After Greg Allen bunted his way on base to start the game, Lovvorn tried to pickoff the speedy baserunner, but the pickoff got away and allowed Allen to reach third with nobody out. Lovvorn proceeded to strike out the next batter, but Anthony Santander doubled down the right field line to put the Hillcats up 1-0. The righty starter from Alabama followed the double by punching out the next two Hillcats to retire the side.

He fanned two more in the second and one more in the third before the Hillcats put the game out of reach in the fourth. Lovvorn struck out a pair of batters in the frame, but faced runners at second and third with Mark Mathias up at the plate. Mathias took the first pitch of the at bat and sliced a double down the right field line to extend the Hillcats lead to 3-0. Allen singled up the middle in the next at bat to drive home Mathias and make it a 4-0 Lynchburg lead. Lovvorn escaped the inning one batter later by striking out Luigi Rodriguez, but the damage was done.

Although Lovvorn was racking up the strikeouts, Brady was more economical with his pitches for the Hillcats. After allowing a leadoff single in the bottom of the first inning he struck out the following two batters before getting Wander Franco on a groundout to retire the side. He then got in a groove and the Rocks had no answer. Brady retired the next 13 batters he faced to make it 16 in a row and 22 of the final 24 batters to finish his night with seven scoreless innings. He yielded to a bullpen that was almost as good, setting aside six of the next seven to close out the Blue Rocks 4-0.

Despite surpassing his previous career high of seven strikeouts and setting a new mark with 10, Lovvorn drops to 0-9 on the year while Brady improves to 6-3 with the win. The two teams will finish three game series on Wednesday night at 6:35 p.m. when RHP Corey Ray (3-2, 3.41) takes on LHP Anderson Polanco (3-1, 1.82). Fans interested in attending the game can call the Blue Rocks ticket office at 302-888-BLUE or get tickets online at BlueRocks.com. Fans interested in listening to the game can tune in to WGLS-FM 89.7 or go to BlueRocks.com for all the game action.

Pebbles of Knowledge

Raul Mondesi continued his rehab assignment with Wilmington on Tuesday. The 20-year-old is returning from a 50-game suspension by Major League Baseball for violating the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Barring rainouts, he will be eligible to resume his season at Double-A Northwest Arkansas on Monday, July 4. Mondesi, who was hitting .250 with five doubles, a triple, five homers and 11 stolen bases in his first 25 games in Double-A this year, went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts as the shortstop on Tuesday night. He is now 2-for-16 during the rehab stint with one run scored. Mondesi last played with Wilmington in 2014 and batted .211 with 34 extra-base hits and 33 RBI in 110 games as the only teenager in the Carolina League that season. He spent most of last year in Double-A, but was added to the Royals roster during the postseason and made his Major League debut during the World Series. He was the first ever player to get his first career at bat in the Fall Classic. The top-ranked prospect in the Royals system, according to Baseball America, joins the Rocks during their weekend series in Winston-Salem, before coming to Wilmington for a seven-game homestand at Frawley Stadium.

Zach Lovvorn's poor luck on the mound continued on Tuesday night against the Lynchburg Hillcats. It was a night to remember, but it was also a night to forget for the right-handed pitcher. Lovvorn set a new career high with 10 strikeouts, but did so in just 4.2 innings while giving up four runs, three earned to drop to 0-9 on the year. The previous high in strikeouts for the Alabama native was seven, which he had done on three separate occasions, but the offense once again abandoned him. The offense has provided Lovvorn with a total of 12 runs now in his 13 starts for a run support average of 0.93 while his overall number is 0.8. With Lovvorn on the mound, the offense simply does not score any runs, plating men on just five occasions while he is on the mound.

With the Rocks losing 4-0 on Tuesday night, the Blue Crew suffered their tenth shutout of the season. They are now 2-10 in shutouts, getting shutout three more times than any other team in the Carolina League. The next closest team in the league in terms of shutout losses is the Winston-Salem Dash who are 4-7 in such games this season. Not only have the boys from Frawley been shutout more than any other team, they are tied for producing the least amount of shutouts from their staff. The only other team in the league to only post a pair of shutouts is the Salem Red Sox, but they are 2-3 in the category. The shutout loss on Tuesday extended a streak of six straight games to start the second half where the Rocks have scored three or less runs.

Although he missed eight games between the end of the first half of the season and the beginning of the second half of the year, Alfredo Escalera has been on a pretty good tear even with the missed time. Since June 9 Escalera has raised his average 20 points to a team high .279. He has gone 16-for-43, which is a 327 clip. Moreover, it has been more than singles for the native of Puerto Rico. He has three doubles in that span, but also his first three home runs of the season. The outfielder has driven in eight, scored five times and walked an additional three times during the hot streak.

They Said It

Blue Rocks Manager Jamie Quirk

"(Zach Lovvorn)'s got good stuff. He made a lot of quality pitches. He made a few bad pitches when he had runners in traffic, just a couple careless pitches. He had second and third struck out the guy and got two outs and then the number nine hitter, a little bit of lack of concentration, maybe a little bit of disrespect thinking he's out of the inning. First pitch, boom, double. You can't be careless you've got to treat anybody with a bat with respect. I think he kind of relaxed a little bit thinking he was going to get out of the inning and then boom, the two runs come in which was the back breaker. He made a lot of quality pitches, he made some tough pitches. Ten strikeouts, a career high, it was great. We struck out 17 guys and you lose the game, that's hard to do. We didn't score. It also goes back to we can never get Zach a lead. He is the one guy in the rotation we don't score for. It's gotten to the point where he thinks he has to go throw zeros up. He gives up a run and then the two, now he's defeated a little bit. I don't blame him that's hard to overcome. As far as his stuff it was excellent. He did a good job the bullpen did a great job. Two hits, leadoff triple and we don't get him in, we could have got right back in the game, those hurt."

"I think mentally not scoring the run runner from third affected us a lot. It's like they're giving you a run and the next two guys don't make contact. They're playing back all we have to do is hit the ball on the ground. It's a mental depressant. It could have been 1-1 and who knows where the game goes from there. They're guy threw good, yes he did. Our guys threw well. That one run right there could have changed the game and seen where it went from there."

"(Sean Brady) pitches below the zone a lot and we have trouble getting them up. We chased a lot down in the dirt, he pitches inside real well, and he does a good job. We get impatient, that's been our story all year, impatience at the plate. We don't walk a lot and we strikeout a lot, that's a bad combination. He's had our number but we've helped him along the way. We get too anxious. We need to get him up, we made a lot of quick outs. He's done well against us but at the same time we helped him a little bit."

Blue Rocks Starting Pitcher Zach Lovvorn

"I was watching them, how they handle off-speed pitches the previous game. I made mental notes preparing for the start. The curveball was on and I took advantage of it."

"When you see something is working and keeping them off balance you're going to keep attacking them with it, so that's what I did. A lot of strikeouts is cool but I'd like to go further in the game and give my team a better chance to win it."

"During the at bat against (Mark Mathias) I was trying to battle, stay right with him, that's what was going through my head. I felt that he was sitting on a curveball but the fastball was losing its gas. The thought process going into it was make a quality pitch and keep it low in the zone and make him get himself out, but I made a bad pitch."

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