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CarL1 Wilmington Blue Rocks

Blue Rocks' Largest Offensive Explosion Leads to Comfortable 13-4 Win

April 20, 2016 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


Frederick, MD - During Tuesday night's game, the big inning came right away with the Wilmington Blue Rocks (6-7) scoring five runs in the top of the first inning. During Wednesday's day game, the Rocks had to wait a little bit longer, but not much. They scored five runs in the top of the second inning to take command of the rubber match against the Frederick Keys (5-9), eventually pulling away for a 13-4 victory.

Corey Toups singled immediately for the Blue Crew and was bunted over for the second straight game by Humerto Areaga. After a strikeout by Ryan O'Hearn, Elier Hernandez came through with a double down the left field line to grab the early 1-0 lead, but the Rocks could not get any more runs across in the frame. Rocks starter Matt Tenuta (2-0) made sure that would not matter, pitching a scoreless frame in the bottom of the first and then the flood gates opened.

The Blue Crew sent ten men to the plate in the top of the second inning, which began with a Wander Franco double (his first of two on the day). Robert Pehl singled to move him to third and after a coaching visit, Luis Villegas, muscled a broken bat single to give the Rocks a 2-0 lead. Toups would walk in the next at bat to load the bases and an Arteaga ground out pushed the lead to 3-0. Hernandez stayed hot at the plate with another base hit, this time a single for a 4-0 advantage before Alfredo Escalera's single two batters late capped the inning, plating both Hernandez and Arteaga to complete the frame up 6-0.

The Keys tried to start a comeback in the bottom of the second inning succeeded in grabbing a pair off of Tenuta. The inning started innocently enough as Tenuta got the first two batters on a ground out and a flyout, but the lefty then walked Austin Wynns to allow the inning to continue. A double by Jonah Heim put runners on second and third before a double by Erick Salcedo put the Keys on the board and cut the Blue Rocks lead to 6-2. But that was as far as the Keys comeback would go.

The first four Blue Crew members reached in the top of the fourth inning as Arteaga's groundout with the base loaded grabbed one of the runs right back. After Tenuta kept the Keys off of the board in the bottom of the third, the boys from Frawley put the game out of reach in the top of the fourth.

Brandon Downes singled to begin the fourth and stole second with Escalera at the dish. After Escalera singled for to pot men at first and third, Franco doubled for the second time in the game, pushing across Downes for an 8-2 lead and leaving men at second and third with nobody out. Pehl made it 9-2 with his second hit of the game and Villegas finished off the scoring with another single to make it 10-2 Blue Rocks.

O'Hearn, the hottest batter of the Blue Crew all season long, was 0-for-4 in his first four at bats, but turned things around in his final two at bats. He singled in the seventh to snap out of the mini-funk and came to the plate once again in the ninth with a chance to add to the tally. O'Hearn had two runners on and crushed a ball out to center. The ball smacked hard off of the center field fence and caromed back towards the infield as the Keys fielders tried to get the ball back in as quickly as possible. Coming into the season, the Blue Rocks had not hit an inside the park home run since August 28, 2011, but O'Hearn ended that streak when he performed the feat against Potomac on April 15. He decided to test his wheels once again and was able to beat the throw home for his fourth home run of the year and second inside the parker in the last six days. Tim Hill came on to pitch the ninth and allowed a solo home run, but nothing else as the Blue Rocks took down Frederick 13-4.

The Blue Rocks finally return home Thursday night after wrapping up the seven game road trip and will take on the Potomac Nationals for five games. Because of the rainout on April 9, the Blue Rocks and P-Nats will play two on Thursday night with the first pitch of game one scheduled for 5:05 p.m. The Blue Crew will send RHP Ashton Goudeau (1-1, 7.27) out to the mound for game one and RHP Josh Staumont (0-1, 2.35) for game two. Despite the early start, Thursday is of course a Beer:30 game presented by DogFish Head and the specials will run from the same time as a normal start, 5:30-7:00 p.m.

Pebbles of Knowledge

The Wilmington Blue Rocks are making it a habit of scoring early and scoring often. They scored five times on Tuesday night in the top of the first inning to put their first inning total at 12 on the year. They again tacked on another run in the first inning during Wednesday's day game when Elier Hernandez doubled home Corey Toups. The 13 runs they have in the first inning are three more than any other frame this season, but the inning that really turned the game was the five run second frame, which was unusual because they had only scored three runs in the second coming into the game.

The largest offensive output for the Blue Rocks coming into the game on Wednesday was eight runs, which they had done on several different occasions and most recently on April 17 against Potomac. They eclipsed that number on Wednesday with 13 runs, ten of them coming in the first four innings of the game. They scored one in the first, five in the second, one in the third and three in the second for the impressive offensive output before adding three in the ninth on Ryan O'Hearn's inside the park home run. The most hits they had in any game prior to Wednesday was 13 on April 16 against Potomoc, but the offense exploded for 14 base knocks in just the first five innings to set a new season high, finishing the day with 17 hits.

Whenever the bottom of the lineup produces a manager is happy. Blue Rocks' Manager Jamie Quirk must be ecstatic after the performance the bottom of the lineup put together Wednesday against Frederick. The 6-9 batters went 9-for-19 with six runs driven in and six runs scored. Leading the way was the man at the bottom of the lineup in Luis Villegas. Despite breaking his bat in each of his first two at bats of the game, Villegas went 3-for-4 with a run scored and two RBI in his first three-hit game of the season.

Humberto Arteaga is sacrificing himself for the team and is getting rewarded for his efforts. Arteaga is the only player on the roster to lay down a sacrifice bunt this season, but has given himself up on three separate occasions in the first 13 games. Arteaga though is still producing at the plate. With a hit in the top of the ninth inning, Arteaga collected a hit for his seventh straight game, tying Austin Bailey's seven-game hit streak from April 8-17. Arteaga is 9-for-29 during the seven game streak with two doubles, five runs scored and three RBI. But Arteaga is not alone in riding a seven game hit streak. Toups went 2-for-4 with a walk and a run scored Wednesday, pushing his numbers during his seven game hit streak to 8-for-24 with a home run, four doubles, five runs scored, three runs driven in and five walks.

The big first baseman for the Wilmington Blue Rocks, Ryan O'Hearn, is known for his home runs. It should come as no surprise that the man who hit 27 home runs for the Lexington Legends and Rocks has four home runs this season. What is surprising though is the manner in which O'Hearn has totaled half of those four. O'Hearn said that he had never hit an inside the park home run in his entire baseball career, including little league, before this season. Back on April 15 against Potomac, O'Hearn hit the first inside the park home run of his career and first for the Blue Rocks since Carolo Testa did so against Salem on August 28, 2011. On Wednesday, O'Hearn decided to get in a little more cardio, hitting a ball to dead center that ricocheted hard off of the center-field wall and giving O'Hearn time to circle the bases for his second inside the park home run in the last six days.

Base runners around the Carolina League need to be a little more careful when taking leads against the Blue Crew's pitching staff. When Matt Tenuta picked off Jay Gonzalez in the bottom of the first inning, it was the ninth time this season a member of the Rocks picked off a base runner. For Tenuta, it was the third pickoff for him this season to lead the team, and the first since he picked off a pair in his start back on April 10 against Potomac. Tenuta's pickoff was the first pickoff for the team since April 17 when Colin Rodgers caught a base runner napping against the Potomac Nationals.

They Said It

Blue Rocks Managers Jamie Quirk

"I played with Willie Wilson for a long time and I saw him hit two inside-the-parkers in the same game from two different sides of the plate. But he's a speed guy. You don't see many power hitters get two inside-the-park home runs in the same week. I give Ryan credit. He kept running. It's a hustle play. He hit it good and with the score he could have cruised into second base and called it a day, but he was running hard the whole way."

"Our guys are starting to get their groove. We're swinging the bats really well and it's up and down the lineup. It's not just one or two guys getting hot. Everyone is contributing. The situational hitting has been very good. We're getting guys over and we're getting guys in. That leads to big innings."

"The way we are hitting right now travels anywhere. We had a couple guys who were struggling early but they're coming around. In this game it can be easy to make it about instant results and you want it right now, but the baseball gods won't always let it happen right now. You've got to keep grinding and competing because it's a long year."

Blue Rocks First Basement Ryan O'Hearn

"Baseball is a crazy game. Sometimes things like that happen. I was just running as hard as I could. I felt like maybe it had a chance but it was hit to the deepest part of the park and had a little too much air under it. But it took a good bounce off the wall and I got the wave again from (manager Jamie Quirk) so I just kept going. "

"It's wild. You never think you're going to hit an inside-the-park home run. I mean I never have. So now to hit two in a week--that's just crazy."

"I wasn't expecting it but I was definitely more prepared this time that's for sure. I saw the ball bounce off the fence in a weird way and the guys had a hard time getting to it. I was just hustling and good things happen."

"What's crazy about (Wednesday) is I started out this game with maybe my worst three at bats of the year. Just couldn't get anything going and felt awful up there. But I stayed positive and focused on getting back to what I do best, which is driving the ball. I was real pleased with myself for being able to do that. It's not always going to go your way, but you can't give away at bats. You have to stay mentally tough and battle."

"It was a great road trip for us. We hit the ball hard and really string together good at bats. I'm pumped to go back to Wilmington and keep it going for the home fans."

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