Lynchburg Hillcats Game Notes
May 5, 2010 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Lynchburg Hillcats News Release
LYNCHBURG HILLCATS (12-13) vs. KINSTON INDIANS (9-16)
May 5th, 2010 -- 6:05 PM
Calvin Falwell Field @ Lynchburg City Stadium
LHP Matt Fairel (3-0, 3.60) vs. LHP Kelvin De La Cruz (2-2, 3.51)
THE HILLCATS: Lynchburg won 6-5 last night over Kinston in walk-off fashion at City Stadium and they have now won the first two games of this four-game series...The Hillcats have won five out of six heading into this evening...Tonight the Hillcats play the third game of their series against Kinston and the sixth game of their current ten-game homestand......The Cats enter today three games back of first place Frederick in the Northern Division...
VS. KINSTON: Lynchburg is 4-1 against Kinston this season after taking two out of three from the K-Tribe last week at Grainger Stadium and winning the first two games of this set...The Hillcats went 10-10 versus the Indians in 2009 and were 6-4 at Grainger Stadium...After starting 8-4 against the K-Tribe, the Cats lost six of the final eight games between the two...Lynchburg is 152-148 all-time against the Indians and 84-64 in the Hill City...
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME: The Hillcats improved to 7-5 at City Stadium this season with their win last night...They are now 4-1 on this current 10-game homestand that is following a stretch of 13 games in a row on the road in which they went 5-8...The Cats are at the start of a stretch of 17 out of 21 games at Calvin Falwell Field and they will play 20 of their 30 games in the month of May at home...
IT'S A WALK-OFF! Last night Lynchburg won in walk-off fashion for the first time this season...It was also the first time the Hillcats have won a game this season with their final team at-bat...The only other game decided with a walk-off run was when the Cats lost at Potomac on a two-run home run in the bottom of the tenth inning at Pfitzner Stadium on April 25th...
CALL IT A COMEBACK: The Hillcats trailed 5-0 entering the seventh inning last night before rallying for the 6-5 win...It marked the first time Lynchburg has won when trailing after five innings (previously 0-8) and after eight frames (0-9)...The Cats had only come from behind to win three games all season before last night, and all three comeback wins were just early one-run deficits...Last season the Comeback Cats had 23 come from behind victories out of their 45 wins in the first half of the season...Nine of those wins were with the team trailing in the seventh inning or later...
WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES: The Hillcats defense committed three errors last night to snap their consecutive games errorless streak at eight games...Thankfully, none of the errors resulted in an unearned run...To start the season Lynchburg had 21 errors through their first 13 games, which was at the time the most in the Carolina League and their .956 fielding percentage was last as well...Since they committed a season-high four errors on April 21 to give them at least one error in ten straight games and in 12 of their first 13, the Hillcats had just two errors in their last 11 games played prior to last night...Their 26 errors are still tied for the second fewest in the CL and their .972 fielding percentage is tied for third in the circuit...
SWATTING SOTO: UTIL Neftali Soto went 2-for-5 last night with a walk-off home run, two RBI and a run scored...The walk-off homer was his first of his professional career and it gave him four homers in his last four games played...On Saturday night he went 4-for-4 with two home runs, three RBI and three runs scored...It was the first four-hit game of the season by a Hillcat, the first multi-homer game and it matched the most RBI and runs scored by a Cat in a game this year...On this homestand, Soto is a combined 12-for-22 (.546) with a double, four homers, nine RBI and eight runs scored...He entered this homestand with just one home run and four extra-base hits on the season in 19 games...Over the course of five games Soto has raised his batting average from .236 to .309...
DIALED IN: RHP Jordan Hotchkiss worked a scoreless ninth inning last night to earn his second victory of the season...The reliever has allowed just one earned run in 14 and 1/3 innings (0.63 ERA) of action this season...The Hillcats bullpen ERA is currently at 6.38 on the season and it would be 7.53 without Hotchkiss...
TONIGHT'S OPPOSING PITCHER: LHP Kelvin De La Cruz was signed by the Indians in 2004 out of the Dominican Republic in 2004...In 2005 he pitched for the Dominican Indians and the following season he threw for the GCL Indians...In 2007 he began back in the Gulf Coast League before advancing to Short Season Low-A Mahoning Valley, where he went 2-4 with a 3.98 ERA in 12 starts...The left-hander pitched for full season Low-A Lake County, Advanced-A Kinston and Double-A Akron in 2008...With Lake County, where he spent most of the season, he went 8-4 with a 1.69 ERA in 18 starts...He also went 3-2 with a 6.44 earned run average for Kinston and 1-0 with a 7.20 ERA in a spot start with Akron...Last season he was limited to just five starts with Kinston and with the AZL Indians...With the K-Tribe he went 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA...This season has returned to the K-Tribe and gone 2-2 with a 3.51 ERA in five starts...He made one start against Lynchburg in 2008, tossing five scoreless frame to earn the victory...De La Cruz was the 13th ranked prospect in the Indians system prior to the season according to Baseball America...
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