HobbsDailyReport.com
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HICKORY – The Hickory Crawdads’ six-game win streak is over but they’re still in first place heading into Thursday night’s home game.
Hagerstown (Md.) toppled Hickory 6-3 at L.P. Frans with 1,525 watching on Wednesday night and trimmed the Crawdads’ lead in South Atlantic League (SAL) Northern Division baseball to two games.
Hickory is 58-64 overall and atop the second-half standings at 31-21, with Hagerstown (66-53, 28-22) and Greensboro (28-22) each two games behind and West Virginia (28-24) three games back.
Greensboro kept pace on Wednesday night by beating Delmarva (Md.) 3-2 in 10 innings, while Lexington (Ky.) beat West Virginia 9-3.
The Suns had nine hits on Wednesday night, three by Tres Berrera and two each by Aldrem Corredor, Jake Noll and Telmito Agustin.
Hagerstown starting pitcher Weston Davis (4-4) pitched with a lead after the fourth inning, when the Suns scored two runs. He threw five innings, giving up four hits, no runs, walking two and striking out seven.
Hayden Howard earned his fifth save of the year after throwing 1 1/3 innings, walking two and striking out one.
Pitching, in part, led to the Crawdads’ win streak ending, with two wild pitches by losing pitcher Reid Anderson (1-10) providing Hagerstown runs.
In the fourth inning, when the Suns went up 2-0, Anderson threw a wild pitch with the bases loaded, and an RBI groundball by Nick Banks scored the other run.
Another wild pitch by Anderson netted Hagerstown a run in the third inning, and it was 5-0 after six innings after Corredor doubled and Noll scored him with a single.
Hickory had eight hits but also made three errors.
Leody Taveras, Anderson Tejeda and Alex Kowlaczyk each had two hits for the Crawdads. Brendon Davis hit a solo home run in the seventh inning – his second of the year—for Hickory’s first run.
Anderson, who has an ERA above 5.10, threw five innings. He gave up six hits, five runs (all earned), walked two and struck out four.
The Crawdads are vying to earn a berth into the SAL playoffs by winning the Northern Division.
After a series finale against the Suns on Thursday (7 p.m.), Hickory is headed to Greensboro for a four-game series (Sunday through Monday).
The Crawdads have only two more home regular-season series, Aug 25-27 against Columbia and games on Sept. 1-4 against Greensboro at L.P. Frans that will close the regular season.
For Wednesday’s boxscore, click on the link below.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_08_16_hagafx_hicafx_1&t=g_box&did=milb&sid=t448