HobbsDailyReport.com
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The Hickory Crawdads are headed home with their fifth straight baseball win in the bag, a victory that widened their lead in the South Atlantic League (SAL) Northern Division.
NEXT HOME GAMES
Tuesday, 7 p.m.: Hagerstown (Md.) Suns
Wednesday, 7 p.m.: Hagerstown (Md.) Suns
Thursday, 7 p.m.: Hagerstown (Md.) Suns
Scoring five runs by the third inning, the Crawdads beat Columbia (S.C.) 7-4 on Sunday to move two games ahead of Hagerstown (Md.) in the second-half division race.
Hickory is 57-63 overall and 30-20 in the second half as it enjoys Monday off before starting a three-game series on Tuesday night at L.P. Frans Stadium against Hagerstown.
Hagerstown (27-21) dropped a full two games back of the Crawdads on Sunday when it was swept by West Virginia 5-2, 5-3. Greensboro (26-22), in third place and three games back of Hickory, swept Kannapolis on Sunday, 4-1 and 3-0.
Ricardo Valencia had three of Hickory’s 11 hits against the Fireflies (59-58 overall), while Anderson Tejeda, Andretty Cordero and Charles Leblanc each added two hits. Leblanc drove in two runs and Tejeda, Cordero and Valencia each drove in one.
Hickory scored three runs in the opening inning. Tejeda and Leody Taveras singled before Cordero delivered a two-run double. Valencia’s run-scoring single made it 3-0.
The Crawdads scored twice in the top of the third inning for a 5-0 lead. Cordero singled, Alex Kowalczyk was hit by a pitch and – with one out – Leblanc doubled in two runs.
Tejeda doubled in a run in the eighth inning for Hickory and an error helped the Crawdads score in the ninth inning.
Reed Gamache went 3-for-3 with an RBI, Jacob Zanon had two doubles and drove in a run and Andres Gimenez had two hits for Columbia, which had 12 hits.
Reliever Sal Mendez (6-6) picked up a win for Hickory after going 3 2/3 innings. He gave up seven hits, two runs (both earned), walked one and struck out five.
Kaleb Fontenot got the final two outs to earn his sixth save for the Crawdads.
The loss went to Fireflies starter Justin Brantley (1-1), who went six innings. He gave up seven hits, five runs (all earned), walked two and struck out four.
The Crawdads have won eight of their last 10 games to move atop the Northern Division standings alone.
After a day off on Monday, games against Hagerstown at L.P. Frans Stadium will be Tuesday through Thursday, all with 7 p.m. starts.
After the short homestand, Hickory goes to Greensboro for a four-game series that will begin on Friday night.
For Sunday’s boxscore, click the link below.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_08_13_hicafx_colafx_1&t=g_box&sid=t448