Blue Crabs fall in series finale to York
Lose 2 out of 3 ahead of road trip
Following Tuesday’s 4-2 win over York to even up the threegame series at 1, the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs were looking to grab a series win in the rubber match Wednesday night.
However, behind solid pitching from starter Jay Gause and some early offense, the Revolution delivered with an 8-2 victory over the Blue Crabs to take the series at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf.
Southern Maryland grabbed an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, but York scored three in the second and two more in the third off Blue Crabs starter Pat McCoy to take a lead it would not relinquish.
Gause went seven innings, allowing just two runs on three hits with seven strikeouts to get his fourth win of the season. He retired the Blue Crabs in order in five of the seven innings.
It was the second straight series loss for the Blue Crabs, also dropping two of three games in New Britain last weekend.
The Blue Crabs (44-37 overall, 6-6 second half) were just a half-game behind York (35-48, 7-6) and Lancaster (45-37, 7-6) for the top spot in the Atlantic League’s Freedom Division second-half standings entering Thursday when they began four-game weekend series in Bridgeport.
“It is still early in the second half and we are .500,” Blue Crabs manager John Harris
said. “York has a very good team. We just have to bounce back and get ready for the Bridgeport series.”
The Revolution, who outhit the Blue Crabs 17-6, had four batters with three hits. Dayron Varona led the charge for the visitors with a 3 for 4 night with a triple, five RBIs and a run scored. Isaias Tejeda, Luis Cruz (3 runs), Jared Mitchell also had three hits.
Michael Snyder drove in the Blue Crabs’ first run on of the game in the first on his league-leading 25th double of the season, scoring Zach Wilson. Snyder finished with two hits to lead the Blue Crabs in the game.
Varona put York in front in the second with a two-RBI single. Leading 4-1 in the third, he had a two-out RBI base hit to put the Revolution up by four.
In the fourth, Southern Maryland trimmed the deficit to 5-2 on L.J. Hoes’ sacrifice fly, scoring Wilson, but it would be its last run of the night.
Varona tripled home a run with two outs in the fifth, bringing McCoy’s night to an end, and capped the scoring in the seventh with a sacrifice fly.
McCoy lasted just 4 2/3 innings, allowing six runs on 12 hits with three strikeouts in the loss. His record dropped to 2-5.
“We played OK,” Snyder said. “If you were to ask any one of the guys on our team, we would all say the same thing, ‘We’re still playing good baseball and we will continue to. We just need to put the past couple series behind us and move forward. We have to continue to play Blue Crabs baseball like we have all year.’”
Led by starter Gaby Hernandez and three relievers, the Blue Crabs kept the York offense in check just enough to get the win Tuesday night.
Hernandez, who improved to 7-1 on the season, allowed just one run on five hits in six innings, walking one and tying a season-high with nine strikeouts.
“I just entered the game with the same approach,” said Hernandez on Tuesday’s win. “I tried to keep everything the same and keep the ball down. I mixed up my pitches to keep the York batters off balance.”
After suffering his first blown save of the season on Monday in the series opener, closer Cody Eppley got his 24th save of the season which is second in the Atlantic League
Eppley recorded the first two outs of the top of the ninth before giving up a Mitchell single and a Cruz RBI triple to cut the lead to two runs, but he forced Carlos Triunfel to ground out to end the game.
Southern Maryland did most of its damage in the third with three runs on a two-run homer by Zach Cone over the left-field wall and a two-out RBI single by Hoes. Cone and Hoes each had two hits to lead the Blue Crabs in the win.
York scored got on the board in the fifth as a run scored on a wild pitch and the Blue Crabs answered that in the seventh on a Cory Vaughn RBI single that scored Edwin Garcia.