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CarL1 Wilmington Blue Rocks

Blue Rocks Rope Six Doubles, Grab First Win of the Season 6-4 over Mudcats

April 11, 2016 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


Wilmington, DE - Six different Wilmington Blue Rocks (1-3) doubled in the series opener against the Carolina Mudcats (2-3) en route to the Blue Crew's first win of the season, 6-4. Ryan O'Hearn doubled for the second straight game and Chad Johnson extended his hitting streak to four games to begin the season. The pitching staff got the job done as well, receiving five solid innings from Ashton Goudeau (1-0) on a night where not a single walk was issued from the home side.

Things did not start smoothly for the Blue Crew though as the Mudcats scored a run in the top of the first inning on a double by No. 1 Braves prospect Dansby Swanson. The home squad responded though with two in the bottom of the first for their first lead of the season. Humberto Arteaga lined a ball to left off of Mudcats' starter Zach Quintana, but let left-fielder Joseph Daris misplayed the ball for a three base error. Austin Bailey bounded a ball through the hole between third and short to tie the game up at one before O'Hearn doubled to left for the Blue Rocks' first lead of the year.

Goudeau got into trouble in the top of the second inning after Wander Franco threw away a grounder to put men at second and third with nobody out, but Goudeau battled and went strikeout, popout, strikeout to escape the jam. The Mudcats finally cracked Goudeau for another in the top of the fifth when Stephen Gaylor doubled and moved to third on the sacrifice bunt turned throwing error by catcher Johnson. Keith Curcio strolled to the plate and hit a flyball to right just deep enough to score Gaylor from third who slid just underneath the tag of Johnson after a strong throw from Escalera in right.

It was in the bottom of the fifth inning when the Blue Crew took control of the game for good. Robert Pehl, who struggled in the second half of the season last year, doubled to left for his second hit of the night and second hit of the year. Arteaga was tasked with bunting him over and he did just that. With Bailey at the dish, Quintana threw a wild pitch allowing Pehl to score, and Bailey doubled two pitches later to chase Quintana from the game.

Mudcats manager Rocket Wheeler went to Wes Parson to try and stop the bleeding, but after retiring O'Hearn, Elier Hernandez doubled to drive in Bailey. Escalera then came to the plate and hit a hopper to first, which hit off of the glove of Joey Meneses and it bounced to right fielder Braxton Davidson who threw the ball well wide of home, allowing Hernandez to score and giving the Blue Rocks a 5-2 lead. They tacked on another in the sixth inning on an RBI groundout by Escalera after Brandon Downes set the table with a leadoff double and moved to third on a single by Johnson.

Derek Gordon worked as the bridge to the bullpen for Blue Rocks manager Jamie Quirk, shutting down the Mudcats over two innings. Brennan Henry came on in the eighth and had trouble allowing a pair of runs thanks to a double, a triple and a sacrifice fly, but would settle down to retire the next five batters, sealing the Blue Rocks 6-4 win. The Blue Rocks are back at it tomorrow night at home at 6:35 p.m. The Frawley boys will toss LHP Colin Rodgers in his first start of the season against RHP Enderson Franco (0-1, 40.50) for the Carolina Mudcats. Fans can listen to the broadcast on 89.7 WGLS-FM or BlueRocks.com. For tickets, please call 302-888-BLUE or visit BlueRocks.com

Pebbles of Knowledge

It took just three minutes of real time after the first pitch was thrown for the Wilmington Blue Rocks to find themselves down 1-0 to the Carolina Mudcats in the top of the first inning. That continued a dangerous trend for the Blue Crew who did not lead at any point through the first 27 innings of baseball to begin the 2016 season. However, after the Mudcats scored their lone run in the first they did not add anymore and the boys of Frawley plated two runs in the first three batters for their first lead of the season. The streak ended after 27 full innings or 55 half frames of baseball.

The man that gave the Blue Crew their first lead of the season was Ryan O'Hearn who has been on a tear over his last three games. O'Hearn collected the team's first extra base hit in the series finale against the Potomac Nationals on Sunday and blasted a double over the left-fielder's head in the bottom of the first to put the Blue Rocks up 2-1. O'Hearn added a single later in the third and is now 7-for-13 in his last three games with two doubles and two RBI. Starting catcher Chad Johnson also extended his hitting streak to four games to begin the year by going 1-for-3 in the game while also stealing two bases to tie him with Humberto Arteaga for the team lead.

While the Blue Rocks started the season slow in dropping their first three games before Monday's win, it has not been for lack of execution, at least when it comes to pitchers holding runners on. In the three games against the Nationals, the Blue Crew's arms picked off at least one base runner a game and five total while Johnson also threw out a runner attempting to steal. Ashton Goudeau continued the impressive streak of at least one base runner picked off in a game when he caught Joseph Daris straying too far off of the first base bag in the top of the fifth.

Coming into Monday night's game, the Wilmington Blue Rocks had struck out 38 times through the first three games. Manager Jamie Quirk told his team that they had to be more aggressive at the plate and they responded with only four strikeouts on the night. The Blue Rocks arms also flipped the script from the early season batting woes as the pitching staff struck out eleven Mudcats batters, the second time in the first four games the pitching staff has struck out 10+ batters (the other time they did it was on April 8 against Potomac when they struck out 14).

They Said It

Blue Rocks Manager Jamie Quirk

"Feels good to get that first win. It's always good to get that one out of the way no matter when you get it. They played a good game, the guys did a good job. Offensively, pitching wise everything was good."

"It was great to get all those doubles. We talked about it earlier today, trying to drive the ball more and all that. It's always good to address it and talk about it and then they go out and do that, but yeah, one extra base hit in three games and then six tonight, we swung the bat real well tonight."

"It's huge that Ashton (Goudeau) went five innings for us tonight because it allows us to get the bullpen in order and you're not going too early to the bullpen. Whenever that starter, I know they're on pitch counts and they're on the lower pitch counts early, now you're asking the bullpen to get four plus innings, and that's what we've had to do every night in the first three games. But going five innings and getting through it with the lead was great."

"It was big for (Brennan) Henry to go back out there and finish off the game after giving up those two runs. That's why I left him out there, to get some of that confidence back. And they had all left-handers coming up and every left-hander he faced he got out. (Dansby) Swanson got the double and then (Jordan) Edgerton got the triple and they were two right-handers. This is A-Ball and he has to learn to get both out, but he hung in there and had a great ninth-inning for us."

"It makes my job so much easier to have a guy like Derek Gordon out of the pen. His role is going to be throwing multiple innings and he knows that. You have to have that long guy who can bridge the gap to the shorter guys and he's done it twice now and has done a great job both times."

Blue Rocks Starting Pitcher Ashton Goudeau

"The first start of the year I had some jitters. There were some pitches that I left up. Even in the second inning I left a couple there that were up, but really after that second inning I settled in and was really able to get the ball down a little bit more and was more effective with my offspeed and it worked out."

"After that first couple of innings I was able to use everything and those pitches ended up working out for me... it felt great and feels great for all of us to get that first win of the year. We had really good offense early and stayed consistent throughout the game and some really good defensive plays like Wander (Franco) making that over the shoulder diving catch (in the fourth) and that was huge. And I was able to compete with my stuff for everybody."

"It was awesome to have that offensive support from all those guys and it was huge. I know that our bats have started off a bit slow, so it was good to see them stay consistent throughout the whole game and get a bunch of hits."

"I think there was one batter that I intentionally tried to go up and out of the strikezone with in the second innings, but the rest were just happy accidents. It's just like one of those things where you have to throw with conviction and you just got to believe in yourself. Once those guys got on in the second it was just like, "alright, it's time to go to work."

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