CarL1 Wilmington Blue Rocks

Blue Rocks Game Notes

Published on May 9, 2014 under Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


HILLCATS' SEVEN-RUN EIGHTH DOOMS ROCKS: The Lynchburg Hillcats scored seven times in the eighth inning to break open what had been a close game and hand the Wilmington Blue Rocks a 9-2 loss. Lynchburg sent 12 men to the plate in the eighth inning, including the first seven batters in a row. They recorded four base hits, three walks and a pair of hit batsmen in the frame. A bases-clearing triple by designated hitter Tyler Tewell broke the game open. At the end of the inning, Lynchburg held a 9-1 lead. The defeat was the Blue Crew's second straight and dropped the Rocks back to three games below the .500 mark.

SLUMP BUSTER: Zane Evans snapped an 0-for-19 skid at the plate with a single in the ninth inning Thursday. Through the first 16 games this season, Evans batted .319. Over the past five contests in which he has played, Evans is a combined 1-for-19 with one walk and four strikeouts. Evans caught the final two ballgames against Salem, the first time this season he has been behind the plate for back-to- back games. On Thursday, he returned to the DH spot he has occupied for much of the season. Evans has split the catching duties with Cam Gallagher, who has received the majority of the starts there defensively. Evans is batting .283 (17-for- 60) as a designated hitter but just .219 (7-for-32) when he works behind the plate.

GOING STREAKING: With his 3-for-4 performance Thursday night, Jack Lopez extended his hitting streak to a personal season-best six games. During the stretch, he is batting .455 (10-for-22) and his average has risen 55 points, from .208 to .263. One of Lopez's hits Thursday was a double in the seventh inning. He is now an astounding 8-for- 9 at the plate this season when he comes up in the seventh frame of a ballgame. The seventh inning has also been Wilmington's best offensively, as a team. The Rocks scored once in the seventh Thursday and have now plated 19 runs in the frame this season.

BOMBS AWAY: Johermyn Chavez has been red-hot at the plate over the past four games. Chavez went 1-for-3 Thursday with his third homer of the season, giving him the Blue Rocks' team lead. Over the past four ballgames, the slugging right fielder has gone 5-for-13 at the plate with two homers, a double, three RBIs and two walks. Prior to the Blue Crew's recent trip to Salem, Chavez had slumped to the tune of a .120 (3-for-25) batting average over his previous seven games. His average now sits 88 points higher, at .208. Chavez's best contest of the campaign came on April 4 at Winston-Salem. Against the Dash, he went 3-for-5 with a home run and four RBIs. Those four RBIs are still tied for an individual Blue Rocks season-high.

A RARE ROUGH NIGHT IN THE FIELD: Wilmington's three errors on Thursday night set a new Blue Rocks season-high for defensive miscues in a game. Hunter Dozier, Raul Mondesi and Mark Donato each recorded one error in the ballgame. The Blue Rocks went errorless in six of the seven games on the recently-completed road trip to Carolina and Salem. The Blue Crew has committed a Carolina League-low 20 errors in 2014 and has yielded just eight unearned runs, also the lowest total in the league.

EIGHTH-INNING AGONY: Lynchburg's seven runs in the eighth inning were the most scored in a single frame by a Blue Rocks opponent this season. The previous season-high had been four, last done by the Myrtle Beach Pelicans on April 20 at TicketReturn.com Field. The Hillcats' nine runs in Thursday's contest also set a new season-high for a Blue Crew opponent. Until Thursday, only the eight runs scored by Myrtle Beach on April 21, also at TicketReturn.com Field, had rivaled that total.

THEY SAID IT, MANAGER DARRYL KENNEDY: "We were a little flat tonight. I think tonight might have been the first day we had to play after a long bus trip; we got in at around 4:30 in the morning. Usually, we've had a day off every time we travel. We were in the ballgame until that eighth inning just killed us. It got away from us. [Aroni] Nina kind of lost his control and things just snowballed. Hey, we're going to come back and get them tomorrow. Their pitcher, he was very stingy. He loaded the bases and then struck out the side. He didn't want to give up any runs. You've got to credit them a little bit...Another great game [for Jonathan Dziedzic]...He pitched a really good ballgame. I thought he was very sharp, as sharp as I've seen him in awhile. He had everything working tonight; he spotted down. Again, he has to take the tough loss...

Yeah, [Johermyn Chavez] is definitely [finding his swing]. He had a pretty good road trip. He's starting to do what we were hoping he would do. The weather's heating up and hopefully his bat will rub off on some other guys and we can get things going."

THEY SAID IT, STARTING PITCHER JONATHAN DZIEDZIC: "I felt like at the beginning I was kind of struggling with the curveball but towards the end I felt like I started throwing it for strikes. Steve Luebber told me to go out and throw a few more in the warm-ups because I didn't have a good feel for it early on. I felt like towards the end I was able to throw all three pitches for strikes...The biggest thing [against Lynchburg] is we had a better game plan. We knew that a couple of guys really like to run so you try to keep those guys off base as much as possible because they pretty much ran at will against me last time we faced them. Other than that you just stick to the game plan. You have a certain game plan going in for certain hitters and you just try to stick to that as best you can. " Today's Starters

WIL: RHP Christian Binford (2-1, 1.91)

vs.

LYN: RHP Greg Ross (2-1, 2.59)

Christian Binford, the No. 10 prospect in the Kansas City Royals organization according to Baseball America, is best known for his pinpoint command while on the mound. Binford has yielded only five bases on balls across his five starts this season and has not walked anyone in three of those outings. The 6-foot-6 righty owns Wilmington's only two starts of seven innings in length this season. The first one came on April 12 at Frawley Stadium against the Winston-Salem Dash. Binford tossed seven shutout innings and struck out 10 that night, helping to lead the Blue Rocks to their second consecutive shutout victory, something the team had not accomplished since 2009. That performance earned him the Carolina League Pitcher of the Week award on April 13. The tall righty nearly topped himself on May 3, by tossing seven shutout innings again, letting up three hits and punching out eight. Binford makes his sixth start of the season Friday against the Lynchburg Hillcats. He has posted a 2-1 record and 1.91 ERA while striking out 34 in 28.1 innings this season. Lefties are batting a paltry .188 against Binford while righties are hitting just .233 against him. Binford, who was a 30th round draft pick in 2011, has a fastball sits between 88 and 93 miles-per-hour according to scouts. By signing with the Royals, he turned down an opportunity to play collegiately at the University of Virginia.

The Atlanta Braves selected right-hander Greg Ross in the 18th round of the 2011 Draft out of Frostburg State University. While at Frostburg State, he put together a sparkling senior season with a 1.49 ERA and 112 strikeouts in 90 innings pitched. Since turning pro, Ross has made 75 appearances (55 starts) in the Minor Leagues, and posted a 26-20 record and 3.71 ERA. The 2014 campaign is his second season with the Lynchburg Hillcats. Ross pitched in 23 games (19 starts) a year ago for Lynchburg and went 9-6 with a 3.26 ERA. He struck out 91 and walked 36 in 121 innings. In 2012, Ross made 25 appearances (21 starts) for Low-A Rome, and posted a 4.60 ERA and a 7-9 record. He made his professional debut pitching for Rookie-Level Danville in 2011. When Ross takes the mound Friday, it will be his fourth start of the 2014 campaign. He owns a 2-1 record and a 2.59 ERA this season and has already faced the Blue Rocks once. That was back on April 16 in Lynchburg, when he tossed five shutout innings and yielded just two hits while picking up his first win of the year.

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Carolina League Stories from May 9, 2014


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