By Lonnie Turner
Nathan Hyler’s inside the park home run highlighted a six-run second inning Monday night to lead the Physicians Healthcare to an 11-6 win over the Burger King Braves in Minor League action.
The Pirates sent nine batters to the plate with Sam Smith and Noah Carter adding singles in the inning. Starting and losing pitcher Cooper Lane walked three and gave up three unearned runs. Trailing 8-4 after three, Lane was relieved by Gage Hunt, who gave up three more runs in the fourth inning on RBI singles by Noah Carter and Josh Brown.
Five walks by Quamez Graves in the fourth inning, on the mound in relief of Carter, resulted in two runs for the Tigers. Carter led the Pirates with two hits in three plate appearances and in addition to Hyler’s homer, Sam Smith and Justice Ladson had hits. Back to back doubles by D.J. Brogdon and Cooper Lane were the only hits for the Tigers, both coming off starting and winning pitcher Carter.
In Monday evening’s second game, the James Lockemy Justice Rangers broke a tight 3-2 contest with the Internal Medicine Hurricanes wide open with six runs in the late innings and held off a Hurricane rally in the fifth to take a 9-3 decision. The ‘Canes chased starting pitcher Kolby Watts with three consecutive hits with no outs and called on John Rourke to put out the fire. Rourke allowed an infield hit off the bat of Jared Darmon with one out and then struck out the final two batters to preserve the win for Watts.
The Rangers had sent nine batters to the plate in the big fourth with Rourke, Cooper Schilsky and Richard Alderman collecting RBI singles. Watts also singled in the inning and scored on an error. Rourke finished the night with two hits in as many times at bat and Schilsky was 2-for-3. Zach Wilkes completed the 7-hit attack with a single in his only time at the plate. The Hurricanes showed up at the park with their bats on fire, too, belting out eight hits, including a run scoring double and two singles in three trips to the plate by Ryan Stephens. Trent McNeill, Jackson Hayes, Jared Darmon, Joseph Desser and Dee Brown all had singles.
On Tuesday, the Pepsi-Cola Blue Jays extended their consecutive winning streak to three games, outlasting the True Value Tigers, 9-5, in four innings. Bo-Bo McKinnon drove in a pair of runs in the bottom of the second with a single and crossed the plate with what proved to be the winning run on a passed ball. He also drove in a run with another hit in a 3-run fourth inning that saw four fielding errors by the Braves, which out-hit the winners, 5-to-3.
Andrew Chestnut was 2-for-2 including three runs batted in to lead the charge by the Braves. Ty Huggins doubled to lead off the game, but was thrown out at third trying to stretch the two-base hit into a triple. D.J. Bogdon and Gage Hunt’s bases on balls were sandwiched by singles by Cooper Lane and the two-run single by Chestnut. Charlie Nash ollins was the winning pitcher, striking out 10 and walking five.
In the nightcap, the Physicians Healthcare Pirates, behind the two-hit pitching of Noah Carter and reliever Quamez Graves, stopped the True Value Tigers, 5-2, in five innings. The Pirates scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning when Carter, the lead-off batter walked and scored a wild pitch. He was followed by Josh Brown, who promptly doubled and scored on a passed ball.
The scoring ended when Nathan Hyler scored after he singled with none out and crossed the plate on a wild pitch. Carter single and doubled in his next two bats and scored both times. In the bottom of the fifth, he drove home Brandon Bethea and Quashad Singleton, who had both singled before the time limit ended the game.
Zach Davis doubled just over the first baseman’s head in the second inning and Andrew Bryant beat out another infield hit to account for both hits off Carter, the starting and winning pitcher, who struck out nine in his three innings on the mound.
Thursday will feature a battle of the two unbeaten teams in the Major League. Both the Dillon Meat Center Reds and Dillon Family Dental Giants won their first two games of the first week and will play at 6:45 following the Minor League game between the undefeated McLeod Health Marlins and the True Value Tigers.
