Crawdads ease past Braves in opener
After a series in which their offense was dishing out a lot of punishment to the opponent, the Rome Braves were on the opposite end of that situation Tuesday night as the Hickory Crawdads racked up 12 runs on 16 hits to earn a 12-6 victory in the series opener at Adventhealth Stadium.
Rome (35-29), which is coming off a road trip to Asheville last week in which it outscored the Tourists 75-50, saw the Crawdads (37-27) put up some big numbers early in Tuesday’s night’s game as they scored three in the first inning, three in the second and five more in the third to grab an 11-0 lead and hold on from there.
The Braves’ bats didn’t go away quietly as they rallied for six runs from the fifth through the eighth inning, including three long balls, but it wasn’t enough as they dropped the contest in front of a home crowd of 1,025.
Leading the offensive totals for Hickory were Evan Carter, who went 3-for-3 with a grand slam, two triples and six RBIS, and leadoff hitter Aaron Zavala, who went 3-for-6 with a homer, double, two RBIS and three runs scored.
The Crawdads’ Trevor Hauver also had two hits, including a homer and a double, to go with two RBIS. Keyber Rodriguez added a pair of hits with a double and an RBI, Cody Freeman contributed a hit, and Luisangel Acuna had a hit, drew a walk and scored two runs. Chris Seise, Scott Kapers and Jake Guenther each had a hit and scored a run.
Rome’s bats were led by Javier Valdes who finished with a three-hit effort, including a homer and three RBIS. Jacob Pearson, who was assigned to
Rome from Double-a Mississippi earlier Tuesday, added a two-run homer, and Cade Bunnell had an opposite-field, solo homer as well. Landon Stephens doubled and scored a run, and Vaughn Grissom tallied two hits.
Rome’s Roddery Munoz took the loss to fall to 2-3 on the season after a short outing in which he went just 2/3 of an inning and allowed three runs on three hits while walking two and striking out one. Issrael De La Cruz was
hit even harder by Hickory as he pitched 1 2/3 innings in relief and gave up eight runs (seven earned) on seven hits while striking out three.
The Braves’ bullpen after that was solid as Dylan Spain pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings and struck out four. Alec Barger went two scoreless and struck out two, and Ben Dum pitched the final two innings and gave up one run on two hits and struck out three.
Hickory starter Tekoah Roby
was solid on the mound as he went six innings to earn the win and move to 3-6. He allowed three runs on five hits and struck out nine.
Three Crawdads relievers each pitched an inning after that, with Eudrys Manon allowing one run on one hit and striking out two, Tyree Thompson giving up two runs on two hits and striking out one and Destin Dotson pitching a scoreless ninth and striking out one.