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CarL1 Wilmington Blue Rocks

Offense Breaks out in the Fourth to Close out Road Trip with a Win

June 2, 2015 - Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


ZEBULON, NC - The Wilmington Blue Rocks were able to salvage the final game of a road trip that saw them lose five games in a row at one point, as they picked up a 6-5 win over Carolina on Tuesday. With the win, the Rocks were able to sandwich that losing streak with two wins over Potomac to start the trip and two wins over the Mudcats to finish it. Dominique Taylor made up for his lackluster road trip with a couple of RBIs on the way to the win.

Wilmington's big frame came in the fourth, trailing 3-1, when they got to Carolina starter Sean Furney in a big way. Furney hurt his own cause by starting off the inning by hitting Robert Pehl in the elbow with a fastball, giving the Rocks a leadoff base runner. Then the Rocks offense would help themselves as they worked four straight hits off of Furney. First, Dex Kjerstad singled into center to move Pehl into scoring position. Taylor then came up with a single of his own to make it 3-2. Sanitago Nessy kept the offensive train rolling as he singled in Kjerstad to tie the score at three. The fourth straight hit for the Blue Rocks would finally be one of the extra-base-variety as Logan Moon roped a ball to the wall in center field. Moon would leg-out a triple and both runners would score to give Wilmington the 5-3 lead. Furney's day was done after he hit Carlos Garcia with a pitch, his second hit-batsman of the inning. Britt Robertshaw came in out of the bullpen and got out of the inning with relative ease, though he would allow a sacrifice fly to Maurico Ramos to extend the Rocks' lead to 6-3 by the end of the fourth.

The Rocks got on the board first in this one, and once again it was Cody Stubbs right in the middle of the offensive action. Stubbs led off the second inning with a double over the head of Sean Godfrey in center to put himself into scoring position with nobody out. A Pehl strikeout and a Kjerstad groundout would not score Stubbs, but the groundout from Kjerstad moved Stubbs to third with two-outs for Taylor. Taylor then smacked a groundball past third and into the glove of a diving Reed Harper at short, but Harper did not have time to get the speedy Taylor as he reached with an infield single and Stubbs scored from third making it a 1-0 Rocks advantage.

Rocks' starter Luis Rico did not have his best stuff on Tuesday as he had to battle through four innings. Rico got himself into a jam in the second as he allowed Carolina to load the bases on three consecutive singles. Just as it looked like the Mudcats might take the lead, Rico got a strikeout of Connor Lien and a groundball off the bat of Joe Odom resulting in an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play to put an end to the threat. Unfortunately for Rico, he could not do the same in the third. He gave up a leadoff single to Harper and then walked Godfrey with one-out. Rico got Dustin Peterson to pop out for the second out of the inning, and just as it looked like Rico may battle his way out of another jam, Jacob Schrader took a 3-2 pitch and cracked it way over the wall in left-center giving the Mudcats a 3-1 advantage. Rico would be replaced by his piggyback partner Yender Caramo to start the fifth inning. Caramo would allow two runs before being replaced in the ninth by Kevin McCarthy who closed it out for his second save of the season.

The Rocks will take a much-needed day off on Wednesday as they travel back up to Wilmington. On Thursday, the Rocks start their biggest series of the season, a four-game set with the second-place Frederick Keys. Wilmington turns to Eric Skoglund to open the short home stand. Skoglund is 3-2 with a 2.30 ERA. The Keys will counter with David Hess who is 2-2 with a 5.07 ERA. First pitch from Frawley Stadium on Thursday evening is scheduled for 6:35 p.m.

PEBBLES OF KNOWLEDGE:

Coming into the final game of the Rocks' road trip, Dominique Taylor was having a very lackluster go of things on the road. Coming into Tuesday night, Taylor was just for 2-for-19 with six strikeouts on the road trip. Taylor was able to reverse his fortunes, though, on Tuesday night, though. Taylor, who has fashioned himself into Wilmington's everyday centerfielder, finally broke out of his slump as he went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored. Taylor is now batting .235 this season with a homerun and 12 RBIs. Taylor also continues to man a solid centerfield for Wilmington.

One guy who has not been struggling for the Rocks during his short tenure in Wilmington has been Cody Stubbs, and Stubbs continued to rake on Tuesday. Stubbs has now hit safely in all seven games he has played since joining the Rocks from extended Spring Training at the start of the road trip. Stubbs ended his day 1-for-4 with a run scored, which was actually his worst game so far as a Blue Rock. That is understandable when you consider that on the road trip, Stubbs went 14-for-26 with five doubles, a homerun, and three RBIs to go along with his three runs scored. Stubbs is now batting .538 through seven games at Advanced-A this season.

The Blue Rocks ended their longest road trip of the season on Tuesday, and during the trip they saw a little bit of everything. The Rocks looked as though they were poised for a huge trip as they extended their winning streak with a double-header sweep of Potomac on May 27, but they followed those performances up with five straight losses to the P-Nats and Carolina. Wilmington bounced back by winning the last two games of the series to end the trip with a 4-5 record. After Alec Mills threw the team's first complete game in game one against Potomac, the Rocks would get two more from Cody Reed and Eric Skoglund, though those complete games would come in losses. The offense suffered two 7-0 shutouts during their five-game losing streak, but rebounded with two wins to close the trip out. The Rocks offense ended the nine-game trip with just 23 runs scored, and continue to struggle despite the success of Cody Stubbs since being called-up.

As the Rocks head back home, two guys can take solace in the fact that they were named Blue Rocks Players Of The Month by the Royals organization. Dex Kjerstad earned the award for Rocks' hitters. Kjerstad batted .308 (20-for-65) during the season's second month, including arguably the biggest hit by any Rocks player this season, a pinch-hit three-run homer to give the Rocks a win over Lynchburg. Meanwhile, there is no surprise that Alec Mills was the reciepient of the pitcher's award. Although Mills' last outing was in June, he still had a great month of May without it. Mills went 3-2 with a 2.51 ERA in May, including 41 strikeouts in just 28.2 innings pitched. Mills is now 4-3 overall with a sub-three ERA and he leads the Rocks with 59 strikeouts.

THEY SAID IT:

Manager Brian Buchanan

"It was good (to get these wins to close out the trip). We seem to have that one inning where we put up some runs, and tonight we did it. I think (Sean Furney) was getting tired a little bit and he left some balls up and we put some good swings on it. We held on for the win."

"(The series with Frederick) is really important. It's obviously nice to win the first half and we're playing Frederick coming up for four games and it's a big series. If we can play well against them and get some distance between them and us it would be nice."

"That's why you play the game, to win the game and go to the playoffs. We've got a shot to play these guys and hopefully win the first half. It's important (for our players to play these kind of games. That's a big part of development, playing these games that are important and competing..."

Centerfielder Dominique Taylor

"That was a really big win for us, especially closing out the series here. The first couple of games we got beat, but I think it's good momentum for us going into the series at home (with Frederick)."

"It's always fun going against good teams, especially heading towards the playoffs. Just like them, we're both good teams and it's going to be fun to go head-to-head and see who comes out. I know all of the guys in here want to make the playoffs. We're not thinking too far ahead, we're just taking it one day at a time. We're just going into every game focused and ready to play hard and hopefully good things will happen."

"It's nice (to get to go back home). We're excited that we have an off day, too. We'll get some time to rest and then we'll be ready for the home series."

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