HobbsDailyReport.com
LAKEWOOD, N.J. – With their second-highest scoring output of the season – highlighted by Alex Kowalczyk’s grand slam in an eight-run second inning – Hickory crushed Lakewood, N.J., 14-0 on Friday night in South Atlantic League (SAL) baseball.
KOWALCZYK
The Crawdads collected 14 hits and limited the host BlueClaws to only three hits as they improved to 46-58 overall and 18-15 in the second half standings in the SAL’s Northern Division.
Heading into a Saturday night game at Lakewood, N.J., the Crawdads are in third place in the division, 1 ½ games back of division-leading Delmarva (Md.), one game behind second-place Hagerstown (Md.) and a game up on fourth-place Greensboro.
Delmarva’s game with Greensboro and Hagerstown’s game with West Virginia were rained out on Friday night.
The Crawdads, who beat Kannapolis 15-6 in April for their highest run production, had their bats ringing as a crowd of 5,910 saw them win for the third straight game (and for the fifth time in six games).
Hickory scored eight runs in the second inning and added a run in the second and another in the third to lead 10-0.
CURRENT ROAD TRIP
Saturday-Sunday: Saturday, 7:05 p.m.; Sunday, 1:05 p.m.
Monday through Wednesday: at Hagerstown, Md., first two games at 7:05 p.m., Wednesday game at 10:35 a.m.
Charles Leblanc doubled in the second inning and Ricardo Valencia singled. The first run scored on a sacrifice fly by Anderson Tejeda, who was the only Crawdads starter to go without a hit on Friday night.
Tanner Gardner hit a two-run home run in the second, his first, to make it 3-0. Eric Jenkins and Brallan Perez then walked and Leody Taveras walked before Andretty Cordeo’s single drove in a run.
Lakewood pulled starter Felix Paulino (2-8, 1 1/3 innings, six hits, seven earned runs, three walks and no strikeouts) and brought in Casey Brown to face Kowalczyk. The grand slam that followed was Kowalczyk’s ninth home run of the year.
Darick Hall had a double and Gregon Rivero had two hits for the BlueClaws (54-50, 14-19), who became the sixth shutout victim of Hickory pitching this season.
Michael Matuella, Hickory’s starter, got a win. He improved to 2-5, throwing 5 2/3 innings (two hits, no runs, a walk, four strikeouts).
Perez led the Crawdads by going 4-for-5 and Cordero had three walks and two RBIs. The first three batters in the order – Perez, Taveras and Cordero combined to go 9-for-13, score eight runs and drive in three.
After finishing the series in Lakewood, N.J., on Sunday, the Crawdads go to Hagerstown and begin a series on Monday night.
For Friday’s boxscore, click on the link below.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_07_28_hicafx_lwdafx_1&t=g_box&sid=t448