By Lonnie Turner
The Physicians Healthcare Pirates (13-1) clinched the Minor League season championship Monday evening by defeating the McLeod Health Marlins, 8-6, behind the three-hit pitching of 11-game winner Jared Darmon. Darmon led the league in innings pitched (42) by going the distance and striking out eight batters to run his season’s total to 101, which also led the league. The Marlins (10-4) dropped to three games behind with the loss with only two games remaining on the 16-game schedule.
In the Majors, the Cotton’s Grocery Reds (8-5) edged the Yankees, 4-3 on Monday, to pick up a half game on the idle Justice Rangers (7-5) and trail the league leading Dillon Dental Giants (10-2) by two and a half games. The Giants will play the Internal Medicine Hurricanes (6-6) in Thursday’s late game and face the Rangers in the 6:45 game on Friday. In rain out games scheduled for next week the Reds are scheduled to play both the Giants and the Rangers.
In Monday’s Minor League contest between the Pirates and Marlins, the first five batters in the Pirates line-up combined for eight hits and seven runs, including Noah Carter (two doubles, two runs); Jared Ivey (two singles, two runs, rbi); Jared Darmon (two singles, two runs, two rbi) and Trent McNeill (two singles, run, rbi).
The Marlins had taken the lead in the first inning when Knox Jackson reached base on an error to start the game and scored on Chandler Matthews’s fielder’s choice, but the Pirates scored four runs in the bottom of the inning on consecutive hits by Carter, Ivey, Darmon and McNeill. The Marlins bounced back in the second to tie the game when Jackson’s two run single scored Maurice Huggins and Malik Bethea. Jackson scored on Tristian Brigman’s two-base hit for the tying run. The Pirates scored four more runs in their half of the second to take an 8-4 lead and the Marlins scored two more in the final two innings. Josh Brown also singled for the winners and Collin Hamilton collected the third hit for the Marlins.
Jon Mitchell Carter and Michael Minges scored four runs between them to stop the Yankees in the second game of the evening. After taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a walk to Carter and a double by Minges, who scored on Noah Henderson’ single, the Yankees bounced back with three runs in the third when Ryan Stephens and Jackson Wolfe walked and scored on Ian Patterson’s double. Patterson scored on a wild pitch. Carter began the third inning reaching first on an error and again Minges sent him home with a single to tie the game. Minges scored what proved to be the winning run on a wild pitch.
Henderson and Minges collected all four hits with two apiece for the winners. Patterson’s run-scoring double was the only hit for the Yankees.
