Wilmer Flores fell a single shy of the cycle in helping the Savannah Sand Gnats (19-11) club the Lakewood BlueClaws 11-7 Saturday afternoon at FirstEnergy Park in Lakewood, NJ.
Flores hand a hand in four of the five Gnats’ scoring innings in his big day In the first inning, he drove home the Gnats first run with a double to centerfield. Flores was hit by a pitch as part of the Gnats’ six-run second inning. He blasted a solo home run straight away to center field in the sixth inning. Leading off the eighth, he tripled to right field and scored on a wild pitch. Flores finished 3-4 with a double, a triple, a home run, a hit by pitch, a strikeout, three runs scored and two driven home. The 18-year old is now hitting .328/.375/.588 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 12 doubles, two triples and five home runs in his first 119 at bats for Savannah this year.
The Gnats built an early 8-0 lead with a two-run first and a six-run second inning. Pedro Zapata singled and Juan Lagares walked to begin the first. Flores then doubled home Zapata, and Lagares scored on a groundout by 3B Jefry Marte giving Savannah the 2-0 lead. RF Cesar Puello began the second inning for Savannah by reaching on an error. 2B Alonzo Harris doubled to right field to put runners at second and third for Zapata who brought them both home with a single to left field to put Savannah in front 4-0. After Zapata was erased on the bases, CF Lagares got the inning going again with a triple to center. Flores was hit by a pitch and LF Nick Santomauro, making his first start for Savannah, reached on a fielders’ choice that brought home a run. Kai Gronauer then walked to load up the bases for 1B Alex Gregory who cleared them with a three-run double to left field that put the Gnats up 8-0.
LHP Jimmy Fuller left the bases loaded in the first and second, but three Savannah errors behind him in the second inning helped Lakewood score three runs to make the score 8-3. Fuller, who struck out seven and walked four, finished five innings, struck out seven, and gave up only those three unearned runs, improving to 4-1.
Flores’ solo home run in the top of the sixth made it 9-3, before the BlueClaws put together a rally, helped by a pair of Gnats errors in the bottom of the sixth to draw within two runs at 9-7.
Savannah put the game away with single runs in the seventh and eighth inning. In the seventh, Gregory walked, advanced to third on a Harris double and scored on a Zapata single to left. In the eighth, Flores did it by himself, tripling and scoring on a wild pitch to complete the game’s scoring at 11-7.
No comments:
Post a Comment