HobbsDailyReport.com
COLUMBIA, S.C. –Anderson Tejeda hit a three-run home run, and the Hickory Crawdads scored 10 runs in their final three at-bats on Friday night in a 15-2 romp past Columbia (S.C.) in South Atlantic League (SAL) baseball.
All nine players in the Crawdads’ batting order had at least one hit – they finished with 16 – as they won on the road to stay tied with Hagerstown (Md.) for first place in the SAL’s Northern Division.
KOWALCZYK
Hickory (55-63, 28-20) continues its series in Columbia, S.C., on Saturday night.
Hagerstown is 27-19 in the second half after beating West Virginia 7-0 at home on Saturday night, dropping the third-place Power three games back of both the Crawdads and Suns.
Alex Kowalczyk led Hickory by going 4-for-6 with an RBI, and Leody Taveras had three hits – including a double and a triple – and drove in two runs.
Kowalczyk is hitting .410 (16-for-39) with 10 RBIs in his last 10 games.
Hickory grabbed a 5-0 lead with five runs in the second inning, stretched that lead to 8-1 through seven innings, and scored six runs in the eighth inning to lead 14-1.
Eight Crawdads drove in runs – Kowalczyk, Taveras, Tejeda, Richardo Valencia, Tanner Gardner, Eric Jenkins (two), Andretty Cordero and Brendan Davis.
Jenkins had a bases-full, two-run single in the second inning when Taveras also tripled in two runs.
In the Hickory eighth, six runs scored – one on an error, two on wild pitches, one on a Valencia single, one on a hit by Davis and one on Gardner’s groundball out.
Luis Carpio and Ian Storm led the Fireflies (59-56, 19-28, last place in the Southern Division) with two hits each, and Arnadlo Berrios hit a solo home run in the eighth inning (his second of the season).
TEJEDA
Tejeda’s home run, a three-run shot, came in the seventh inning and it was his fifth of the year.
Crawdads reliever Jacob Lemoine (2-2) picked up a win after throwing three innings. He gave up three hits, an unearned run, walked three and struck out none. He came on in relief of A.J. Alexy who pitched four innings (three hits, no runs, four walks, five strikeouts).
Chase Ingram took the loss for Columbia, going two innings. He gave up six hits, five runs (all earned), walked four and struck out none.
The game, attended by 3,551, took 3 ½ hours to play and had a 10-minute rain delay.
Hickory has won three straight games, four of its last five and is 7-4 in August and has outscored opponents 28-3 in the last three games.
The Crawdads are playing Saturday and Sunday in Columbia, S.C., then taking Monday off before coming home for a three-game series with Hagerstown on Tuesday through Thursday – all three games start at 7 p.m. at L.P. Frans Stadium.
For Friday night’s boxscore, click on the link below.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_08_11_hicafx_colafx_1&t=g_box&did=milb&sid=t448