FSL1 Charlotte Stone Crabs

'Crabs Trounce Cardinals 10-4 for First Road Win

Published on April 17, 2015 under Florida State League (FSL1)
Charlotte Stone Crabs News Release


JUPITER, FL (April 17, 2015) - All the talk heading into Friday night's game between the Stone Crabs and Cardinals focused on the `Crabs struggles to hit in Daytona the day before. Scratch that. All the talk centered on Palm Beach and its four-game winning streak coming into the series, courtesy of a sweep over Lakeland in which the Cardinals outscored the Tigers 22-1. Finally, the `Crabs bats came alive and a seven run fourth inning was more than enough to lift them to their first win on the road 10-4.

Perhaps the tone was set early when Andrew Velazquez' squib to short was mishandled by the Cardinals' Juan Herrera for an error to begin the ballgame. A one out single by Willy Adames and another base hit into right by Jake Bauers scored the game's first run. Joey Rickard sent a flyball to right for the second out, but Juniel Querecuto rocketed a two-run triple to the wall in right center to give Charlotte a 3-0 lead.

With so much offense, it's often easy to overlook the performance of the starting pitcher. Chris Kirsch made sure he was noticed when he worked out of a first and third situation in his first inning by getting Rowan Wick to lineout to Adames short to retire the side. Over the next four innings, Kirsch kept his pitch count low while allowing just two Cardinals to reach on a bunt single and a walk.

Sometimes all it takes is one inning for a team to fire on all cylinders, and that's exactly what happened to the Stone Crabs in the fourth. Armando Araiza and Braxton Lee opened it up with singles, before Cardinals starter Trey Nielson walked Andrew Velazquez to load the bases with nobody out. Kean Wong's 20th birthday finally kicked off with a two run single to make it 5-0 and start the rout. Another walk to Adames chased Nielson (1-1) and reloaded the bases for Bauers, who got credited with his second RBI by working another walk against lefty Steven Sabatino. The biggest blow came from Rickard, who cleared them all with a hard double down into the left field corner for a 9-0 lead. Two more singles gave Querecuto three hits and Yoel Araujo a run batted in to complete the scoring and make it 10-0.

The Cardinals had too much ground to make up, but finally got their first run off Kirsch courtesy of a solo home run by Luke Voit in the sixth. At 10-1, Kirsch (1-0) was done after six innings in which he allowed just the one run on three hits, while walking two and striking out four. In his first start of 2015, he earned a win to get the Stone Crabs their first away from Charlotte Sports Park.

OFFENSIVE NOTES: Eight of the nine Stone Crabs in the starting lineup finished with hitsAlexander Simon and Mike Marjama were late-inning replacementsVelazquez didn't have a hit but got on base twice and scored two runsWong finished 2-for-5 with a double and two runs batted inAdames went 3-for-4 with a double and two runs scoredQuerecuto had three hits and two runs driven inAraujo and Lee each had two hitsthe `Crabs established new season highs with 10 runs on 15 hitsthey batted around in the fourth before the first out was recorded, and wound up sending 12 batters to the plate.

The series continues in Palm Beach on Saturday night at 5:35 PM when Jacob Faria (1-0, 0.00 ERA) takes on lefthander Corey Littrell (0-1, 4.50 ERA). You can follow all the action by listening to the game on www.stonecrabsbaseball.com via TuneIn Radio, or tuning into 91.7 FM-WVIJ in the Port Charlotte area. The Stone Crabs Pregame Show starts at 5:15 PM on the Stone Crabs Radio Network!

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Florida State League Stories from April 17, 2015


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