HobbsDailyReport.com
ASHEVILLE – The Hickory Crawdads didn’t win on Wednesday night but still managed to hold onto a tie for first place.
Asheville whipped the visiting Crawdads 8-4 in the opener of a South Atlantic League (SAL) series. That — coupled with Charleston, W. Va., edging Hagerstown (Md.) 6-3 on Wednesday night — left Hickory and Hagerstown still tied for the Northern Division lead.
Game 2 of the Crawdads’ series at Asheville is at 7 p.m. on Thursday night.
Hickory is 12-8 in the second half standings (39-51 overall) while the Suns are 11-7 in the second half.
Asheville (41-47, 12-8 second half) is 1 ½ games behind Charleston, W. Va., in the Southern Division standings.
A crowd of 2,628 watched the Tourists prevail behind three hits by Manuel Melendez, two by Max George and two by Jacob Bosiokovic, who drove in three runs. Melendez and Bosiokovic each had a triple.
Tanner Gardner and Yohel Pozo — batting seventh and eighth respectively in Hickory’s batting order — each went 2-for 4. Alex Kowalczk hit a home run, and Eric Jenkins drove in two runs for the Crawdads.
Asheville led 2-0 early via a two-run double by Bosiokovic in the second inning, and was up 2-1 in the bottom of the third and added three runs for a 5-1 lead. Crawdads starting pitcher Edgar Arredondo had a throwing error in the inning that scored all three runs.
Pozo and Jenkins had run-scoring hits in the fourth inning for Hickory, which closed the gap to 5-4 with three runs.
An RBI single by Melendez in the bottom of the fourth stretched the Tourists’ lead to 6-4. They added two runs in the eighth inning, one on a hit by Bosiokovic and the other when Willie Abreu was hit by a pitch.
Kowalczyk hit his home run for Hickory in the fourth inning, a solo shot that was his seventh of the season.
Arrendondo (5-6) took the loss, working six innings. He gave up eight hits, six runs (three earned), walked one and struck out nine.
The Tourists’ Antonio Santos (5-8) went seven innings and got a win. He gave up eight hits, four runs (three earned), walked none and struck out four.
Click the link below for Wednesday’s boxscore.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_07_12_hicafx_ashafx_1&t=g_box&did=milb&sid=t448