CarL1 Wilmington Blue Rocks

Rocks fall behind early, lose 6-2

Published on May 16, 2008 under Carolina League (CarL1)
Wilmington Blue Rocks News Release


Myrtle Beach, SC - Opportunistic offense from the Myrtle Beach Pelicans put the Wilmington Blue Rocks (18-22) in a 6-0 hole they could not climb out of in a 6-2 loss at Coastal Field on Friday night. The Pelicans hit two home runs on the game, stopping Wilmington's winning streak at three games both on the road and overall. The Blue Rocks fell to 1-7 against the Pelicans this season, including five straight setbacks to the league's winningest squad.

The Pelicans secured a lead they would not let up in the opening inning with an unearned run on starter Jason Godin (2-3). Travis Jones singled to left and Brandon Hicks followed with a fly ball to left field. On the run, Brett Bigler put himself in position to make the play, but the ball errantly bounced off his glove while he leaned plateward, allowing both Hicks to reach first and Jones to take third base. One pitch later, Tyler Flowers drove Jones in with a hard groundball out to third base for a 1-0 deficit.

The Pelicans added a pair of runs on consecutive two-out RBI hits from Flowers and Ernesto Mejia in the third inning, and tacked on another two scores when Concepcion Rodriguez homered to left with a man on base in the fourth. Shortstop Brandon Hicks slammed his team-leading seventh home run of the season in the fifth, a one-out solo shot over the left-field seats and out of the park.

Godin allowed six runs (five earned) on six hits and two walks, striking out four, firing his team-leading ninth wild pitch and allowing the two home runs. Behind him, reliever Chris Nicoll worked two perfect frames, striking out three.

Wilmington earned its scores on three straight two-out hits in the eighth off the bats of Jarrod Dyson, Chris McConnell and Kurt Mertins. However, reliever Brett Butts worked around a leadoff ninth-inning walk by retiring the last three in a row, including a couple of strikeouts, en route to his fifth save. Butts worked the last three innings of the game behind starter Chris Vines (2-0) who struck out a career-high tying nine over six shutout innings.

Wilmington and Myrtle Beach meet in game two of the three-game set on Saturday night at 7:05 p.m. Right-hander Blake Wood (1-2, 3.38) throws for the Blue Crew against southpaw Kelvin Villa (1-0, 3.38), who makes his first start of 2008.

PEBBLES OF KNOWLEDGE: Myrtle Beach left just one man on base all night when Hicks was stranded at third base in the first inning.

Chris Nicoll has worked 16.0 consecutive scoreless innings. Over his last seven appearances, Nicoll has twirled 14.1 scoreless innings with 15 strikeouts.

The game started on time with light rain falling and lasted just two hours and nine minutes.

Chris McConnell entered the night with just two hits over his last 29 at-bats, but produced a solid effort with a 3-for-4 showing including an RBI, a stolen base and a run scored.

Catcher Matt Morizio collected his second triple of the season in the fourth inning.

Eight of the 29 runs against Jason Godin this season have been unearned.

Josh Johnson worked three walks on the night, bringing his team-high total to 29 on the season and raising his league-best on-base percentage to .491.

Joe Dickerson went 0-for-4 on the game, including a pair of strikeouts, dropping his batting average to .291 on the year. It marks the first time Dickerson's average has been below .300 since the first week of the season on April 7 when he was at .286.

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Carolina League Stories from May 16, 2008


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