Suns Fall 4-1 Tuesday Night
July 31, 2018 - South Atlantic League (SAL) - Hagerstown Suns News Release
Hagerstown, MD - Tomas Alastre earned his seventh quality start as the Hagerstown Suns fell 4-1 to the Lexington Legends on Tuesday night at Historic Municipal Stadium. The Suns are 12-23 in the second half and 40-64 overall. Hagerstown will play the rubber-match of this three-game series on Wednesday morning with a 10:35 AM first pitch.
Lexington scored first in the opening inning against Hagerstown starter Alastre. With two outs, Nick Pratto walked and Seuly Matias belted a home run to left field, taking a 2-0 lead. The ball traveled 359-feet on a line drive and bounced off the batting cage just beyond the left field wall.
Hagerstown came within a run in the fourth against Lexington starter Daniel Lynch. Armond Upshaw led off the inning with a double to left and went to third when Cole Freeman singled through the left-side of the infield. With one out and runners at the corners, Alex Dunlap singled past Jeison Guzman at shortstop to plate Upshaw and cut the Legends lead to 2-1. Omar Meregildo grounded into a fielder's choice that retired Dunlap at second and moved Freeman to third, but Nick Choruby struck out looking to end the inning and threat.
The Legends added to the lead in the eighth against Suns reliever Carlos Pena. Guzman bunted for a single to lead off the inning for the Legends. Guzman attempted to steal second, but Cristian Perez was called out on batter's interference which forced Guzman back to first. In the next at-bat, Pratto crushed a 410-foot, two-run home run to make it 4-1 in Lexington's favor.
Alastre (4-6) spun seven innings while allowing two runs on five hits with five strike outs, earning a quality start in a loss on Tuesday night. Pena pitched the last two innings, giving up two runs on two hits with two strikeouts in the Suns 4-1 loss.
Notes: The Suns finish July 12-15... The 12 wins is the most in any month by Hagerstown this season... It's the second time this season that the Suns lost 15 games in a month... Hagerstown belted 18 home runs in July, which is the most in any month in 2018... Freeman extended his hit streak to six games... It's his third hit streak of six or more games this season... Alastre picked off his third runner of the season in the sixth inning... It was Alastre's first pickoff since June 10 against Delmarva and the Suns 10th of the season as a team... His seven-innings pitched is a career-high... Alastre earned his seventh quality start of 2018... His second in as many starts... Upshaw logged his 10th multi-hit game of the year... Dunlap has driven in nine RBIs in his last six games... Hagerstown will play the final game of the three-game series on Wednesday morning... First pitch will be at 10:35 AM... The Suns will send RHP Andrew Lee (3-2, 5.03 ERA) to the mound against RHP Carlos Hernandez (6-5, 3.48 ERA)... The broadcast can be heard, starting with the pregame show at 10:20 AM on www.hagerstownsuns.com by going to multimedia tab and clicking on "Listen Live"... The broadcast is also available on the Hagerstown Suns Radio Network in the Tune-In Radio and MiLB First Pitch apps.
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