HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY – Ricardo Valencia and Ti’Quan Forbes each hit a home run on Saturday night as Hickory toppled Asheville 6-4 to snap the Crawdads’ losing streak at seven games.
Valencia, batting clean-up, went 2-for-4 and hit a solo home run in the second inning while Forbes, batting in the No. 5 hole, went 2-for-4 and hit a two-run home run in the sixth inning that wiped out the Tourists’ 4-3 lead in a South Atlantic League (SAL) baseball game.
Valencia, who had two RBIs, has two home runs this season and Forbes, who drove in three runs, now has six.
A crowd of 2,225 at L.P. Frans Stadium saw C.D. Pelham gain a win in relief and Jacob Lemoine post his third save. Pelham pitched three hitless and scoreless innings, walking one and strike out four, and Lemoine got the final four outs.
Jose Gomez, Willie Abreu and Joel Diaz each drove in a run for Asheville (20-27).
Brandon Gold threw eight innings for the Tourists and took the loss. He gave up nine hits, six runs (three earned) with one walk and six strikeouts.
The final game of the series is Sunday at 3 p.m.
Hickory (19-30) is in last place in the Northern Division, 10 ½ games back of Hagerstown (Md.) and Asheville is in sixth place in the Southern Division and nine games back of division-leading Greenville, S.C.
The Crawdads begin a three-game home series against Kannapolis on Monday at 6 p.m. Game 2 is at 6 p.m. on Tuesday and Game 3 at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Hickory will then travel for four games at Delmarva (Md.) before coming home for a seven-game homestand that begins June 6 with three games against Greenville, S.C.
Click the line below for Saturday’s complete boxscore and visit Mark Parker’s personal website – crawdadsbeat.com – for more on the Crawdads.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2017_05_27_ashafx_hicafx_1&t=g_box&did=milb&sid=t448