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Charleston Dirty Birds

West Virginia Power: Game Notes (August 24)

August 24, 2018 - South Atlantic League (SAL1)
Charleston Dirty Birds News Release


West Virginia continues its four-game series against the Rome Braves this evening, with first pitch set for 7 p.m. from State Mutual Stadium. RHP Sergio Cubilete (4-5, 5.60 ERA) takes the hill for the Power.

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BRAVES WALK IT OFF IN OPENER: West Virginia scored first against Walter Borkovich, who had pitched 18 consecutive scoreless innings since becoming a starter, but fell short 3-2 in the ninth in the series opener Thursday evening at State Mutual Stadium. It was the second consecutive walk-off win for the Braves against the Power at State Mutual Stadium. The loss also marked the second straight game the Power lost on the last at-bat after they fell 3-2 in the 10th to the Charleston RiverDogs Tuesday evening at Appalachian Power Park. Rodolfo Castro led off the second with a single and scored on a Robbie Glendinning base knock up the middle. The Power scored their second run in the top of the eighth, which tied the game at two. With no outs and the bases juiced, Calvin Mitchell grounded into a 6-3 double play hit to AJ Graffanino. The ground out plated Lolo Sanchez, but stunted the Powers' inning. In the bottom of the ninth, Castro committed a two-base error, his second of the game, to place Marcos Almonte on second to begin the inning. Almonte would move to third on a ground out and score from a sacrifice fly to left off the bat of Shean Michel. West Virginia's pitching staff allowed just one earned run in the game while the defense committed four errors in the loss. Beau Sulser was on the hook for the loss despite not giving up a hit or a walk in his outing.

KNOCK OUT (K)NUNEZ: West Virginia's starter went five innings without allowing an earned run. Oddy Nunez whiffed a season-high seven batters in the Power's loss Thursday. The lefty now has a 1.88 ERA in five games (three starts) for West Virginia since being assigned to the Power from Advanced-A Bradenton. The Dominican Republic-native has yet to earn a win or a loss in 24 innings pitched in the South Atlantic League, but was 4-9 with the Marauders this year after finishing 5-8 in the SAL in 2017. Nunez's WHIP (1.04), batting average against (.228) and walk rate (1.5/9 IP) are all down from last season. In 2017, he held a 1.18 WHIP, .239 batting average against and 2.5/9 IP walk rate.

ERROR, DOES NOT COMPUTE: Including West Virginia's four errors Thursday evening, they have now committed 153 errors this season, which is third-highest in the South Atlantic League. The Rome Braves pace the league with 168 miscues. The Power's fielding percentage is also second lowest in the SAL at .965. The Lakewood BlueClaws own the league's highest mark, .979. The costly mistakes have resulted in West Virginia giving up 106 unearned runs.

STREAKING SANCHEZ: Sanchez scored yesterday to tie the game in the eighth. That run was the left-fielder's 49th of the season, tying him with Chris Sharpe for fourth-most on the team. Oneil Cruz eclipses the rest of the team with 66 runs scored this season. Sanchez trails Deon Stafford (53), who has the second most runs scored on the team by just four runs. Sanchez has scored seven runs in his last 10 games, while tallying 10 hits in 32 at-bats (.313 batting average). The 19-year-old has thrived in August, totaling 17 hits in 16 games and scoring 10 runs in 53 at-bats.

RODOUBLE CASTRO: Castro collected his 18th multi-hit game of the season yesterday. The middle infielder trails Cruz, Stafford, Mitchell and Sanchez for most multi-hit games on the team. Cruz leads the way with 30 such affairs.

DEAR JOHN: Pomeroy has been dominant since joining West Virginia August 8 from the Black Bears. In five relief appearances, he has not allowed a hit while tallying eight strikeouts to just two walks. Pomeroy has not given up a run in his last 10 outings, dating back to July 27 when he was in the New York-Penn League. The 23-year-old is in his first season back since undergoing Tommy John surgery in early April 2017 after suffering a torn UCL at the end of 2016.

STEALING THE LIMELIGHT: Logan Stoelke had quite the impressive South Atlantic League debut with West Virginia Tuesday evening. The Pirates' ninth-round pick in 2018 dominated the three batters he faced, striking out David Metzgar and Carlos Vidal on called strikes before inducing a weak ground out from Oswaldo Cabrera that he handled himself. Stoelke needed just 15 pitches (11 for strikes) to get through his lone inning of work.

PLAYOFF PUSH: With West Virginia's loss Wednesday and Augusta's doubleheader sweep over Kannapolis, the Power moved to three games back of the Intimidators in the race for the South Atlantic League's Northern Division Wild Card spot. West Virginia has 11 games remaining in 2018, with only four coming against the Northern Division.

POWER POINTS: West Virginia is 15-24 in one-run games this season... Luke Mangieri has reached base safely in all six games he has played in since coming to the Power... Over his last eight appearances, Sulser has ceded one earned run over 12.1 innings (0.73 ERA) with 19 strikeouts... Kaiser has recorded a hit in each of his last five games... Glendinning has reached base safely in each of his last seven games, the longest active streak amongst Power sluggers.

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