Game Notes (July 3)
July 3, 2019 - South Atlantic League (SAL1)
Charleston Dirty Birds News Release
The Power concludes their three-game series with the Hickory Crawdads Wednesday evening at Appalachian Power Park, with first pitch set for 7:05 p.m. RHP Josias De Los Santos (0-5, 5.36 ERA) gets the call for West Virginia, while Hickory sends RHP Tim Brennan (7-2, 3.33 ERA) to the bump.
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MOYERS DEALS IN 1-0 WIN: Steven Moyers spun a career-high 8.1 innings and struck out a career-best 10 batters to guide West Virginia to a 1-0 win over the Hickory Crawdads Tuesday evening at Appalachian Power Park. Moyers ran into some trouble early, allowing three hits over the first two innings, but settled down after stranding the bases loaded in the second. The Power pushed their lone run across in the third, as Jake Anchia and Mike Salvatore recorded back-to-back singles to put runners at the corners for Charlie McConnell, who brought in Anchia with a groundout to second. Moyers retired 12 straight from the end of the fourth into the eighth inning, while punching out his career-high 10th slugger in the seventh. The left-hander got a first pitch groundout to short to start the ninth, but Tyreque Reed laced a single to left that ended his outing. Ben Onyshko entered and closed the door on the Crawdads, inducing a 6-4-3 double play from Sherten Apostel on just two pitches to complete the blanking.
LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF QUALITY STARTS: Moyers turned in his seventh consecutive quality start for the Power Tuesday evening against Hickory, as well as his ninth in his last 10 outings. With that quality outing, Moyers posted his 12th quality start of the year, the most among West Virginia's pitching staff. The only other Power pitcher in team history (2005-present) to have 12 quality starts in a season is Dario Agrazal, who accomplished the feat in 2016. In his last seven starts, the left-hander has given up 10 earned runs over 48.0 innings of work, good for a 1.88 ERA, with 46 strikeouts, good for the third-lowest ERA in the SAL during that stretch (May 28-current). The University of Rhode Island product has hurled at least six innings in 13 of his 16 starts this season, and has only ceded more than three runs in four of them.
A SEASON TO REMEMBER: Following his heavyweight performance Tuesday, Moyers now leads the South Atlantic League in both innings pitched (100.0) and strikeouts (105). The southpaw is the lone SAL hurler to surpass the century mark in innings and strikeouts this season. In fact, only Jack Wynkoop of the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats has more innings than Moyers (101.0), while he possesses the 12th-highest strikeout total across the Minor Leagues (Ljay Newsome, 115 between High-A Modesto and Triple-A Tacoma). West Virginia has not had a pitcher with at least 100 innings pitched and 100 strikeouts since 2017, when both Luis Escobar and Eduardo Vera crossed those thresholds, with Escobar posting a Power single-season record 168 punchouts over 131.2 frames. Vera locked up 109 hitters through 132.1 innings of work.
HISTORY IN THE MAKING: With his career-best 8.1-inning, 10-strikeout gem last night, Moyers tied Clay Chandler for the longest start by a Power pitcher this season, and the second-longest start by a Power pitcher in team history. Brian Leach has the only longer outing, as he twirled 8.2 innings against Bowling Green on August 27, 2009. Moyers also became the third West Virginia hurler to register double-digit strikeouts this season, matching Chandler (April 22) and Ryne Inman's (April 23) totals against the Columbia Fireflies.
BY THE SLIMMEST OF MARGINS: With their 1-0 win Tuesday over Hickory, the Power snagged their 20th one-run victory of the season, improving their overall record in one-run contests to 20-9. West Virginia's .690 winning percentage is tops in the league, while their 29 one-run games played are tied for fifth-most in the SAL with Kannapolis (Lakewood, 35). West Virginia has now won five 1-0 decisions, the most 1-0 wins in a single season in Power history (2005-present).
HANGING ZEROES: The Power also posted their ninth shutout win of the season, moving their record to 9-4 (.692), the best winning percentage in that category in the South Atlantic League as well. West Virginia's nine shutout wins are second-most in the league to Delmarva, who boasts 11 blankings this year.
CHI, CHI, CHI, CHIA: After going 2-for-3 with a run scored Tuesday, Anchia extended his season-long on-base streak to 10 games (June 20-present). He has hit safely in all but one of those contests (June 30), and registered his second multi-hit game of this streak (also June 25). Anchia recorded his 10th multi-hit affair of the season Tuesday, becoming the ninth Power batter to have double-digit multi-hit games in 2019. During the second half, the West Virginia backstop is boasting a .282 (11-for-39) clip with two homers and eight RBI.
POWER POINTS: Onyshko picked up his first save of the season, and second career Minor League save, Tuesday night. He became the sixth different Power pitcher to record a save in 2019... Salvatore notched his first professional hit in his fifth career at-bat with a third-inning single... West Virginia went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position Tuesday.
South Atlantic League Stories from July 3, 2019
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- Game Notes (July 3) - Charleston Dirty Birds
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