Hobbs Daily Report.com
GREENSBORO – The Hickory Crawdads need a win on Sunday to stay alone in first place in the South Atlantic League (SAL) Northern Division title race.
Greensboro clipped the visiting Crawdads 5-3 on Saturday night to cut Hickory’s division lead to one game.
The Crawdads (59-66, 32-23 second half) and Grasshoppers (67-53, 30-23) play Sunday at 4 p.m. and Monday at 1:13 p.m. to finish a four-game series.
Hickory goes to Delmarva (Md.) for games on Tuesday through Thursday before coming home to face Columbia (S.C.) in a three-game series that starts Friday.
Falling for the third time in four games on Saturday, the Crawdads have a one-game lead over Greensboro, with Hagerstown (Md.) at 29-24 and West Virginia at 30-25 each two games back of first place.
Kannapolis beat Hagerstown 6-3 on Saturday and West Virginia won 7-4 over Greenville (S.C.).
The Crawdads and Grasshoppers each had 10 hits but Greensboro had the bigger ones to win before 7,062 fans.
Brian Miller went 3-for-5, J.C. Millan had two hits and Rony Cabrera hit a home run to lead the Grasshoppers.
Andretty Cordero, Alex Kowlaczyk and Charles Leblanc each had two hits for Hickory.
The Crawdads led 1-0 after scoring a run in the second inning when Kowalczyk doubled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Ricardo Valencia.
Blaine Prescott singled in the fifth inning and scored on a double by Cordero to put Hickory ahead 2-0.
Greensboro scored twice in the bottom of the fifth to tie it 2-all. Millan singled, Jhonny Satos walked. After a hit batsmen loaded the bases, Miller delivered a two-run single.
Cabera’s home run, a solo shot and his second of the season, gave the Grasshoppers a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning. They led 5-2 after scoring two more runs in the eighth inning on run-scoring singles by Carbera and Miller.
Hickory scored in the ninth when Leblanc and Eric Jenkins singled, with the run scoring on a double play ball.
Kyle Keller (2-0) threw strikes on 20 of his 25 pitches in relief to gain a win. He pitched 2 ½ innings, giving up two hits, two runs (one earned) and he struck out two.
Max Duval, the Grasshoppers’ starter, went 6 2/3 innings, allowing eight hits two runs (both earned) with two walks and five strikeouts.
Grant Zawadzski (0-1) took the loss for the Crawdads. Pitching in relief of Edgar Arrendondo, Zawadzski allowed three hits and two runs (both earned) over 2 2/3 innings.
Click on the link below for Saturday’s boxscore.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_08_19_hicafx_gboafx_1&t=g_box&did=milb&sid=t448