Rome 4, Savannah 3

The Rome Braves defeated the Savannah Sand Gnats 4-3 Thursday night at State Mutual Stadium before a crowd of 2,076. Ronan Pacheco pitched six solid innings and gave up only one run to help lead to a series sweep of Savannah. Braves starters combined for 25 1/3 innings and gave up a combined eight runs in the four games to help the Braves sweep the first place Sand Gnats.



After Chris Garcia walked and Edward Salcedo reached on an error to start the bottom of the second, David Rohm’s fly ball allowed Garcia to move to third and put runners on the corners with one out. With Ryan Delgado at bat Salcedo stole second and an errant throw by catcher Blake Forsythe allowed Garcia to score easily from third and Salcedo to move up to third. One batter later Tony Mueller poked a double down the right field line to give the Braves a 2-0 lead.



Forsythe made up for his error with a two out double in the fourth and later scored on an Aderlin Rodriguez RBI single for the 2-1 score. In the bottom of the fifth, after hitting a one out single, Mueller took advantage of two throwing errors on a pick off attempt to move around to third base. Kyle Rose then stepped to the plate and laid down a suicide squeeze bunt on the first pitch he saw bringing home Mueller and give the Braves a 3-1 advantage.



In the top of the seventh Luis Nieves led off the top of the seventh with a triple. After nearly being stranded at third Wilfredo Tovar drove Nieves in with a two out RBI single to narrow the score to 3-2. David Rohm helped get the run back for the Braves in the bottom of the inning after blasting a one out triple off the center field wall. Ryan Delgado then hit a sacrifice fly to score Rohm and extend it back to a two run 4-2 game.



Ronan Pacheco (5-8) earns the win for Rome while Taylor Whitenton (4-4) takes the loss for Savannah. Matt Chaffee earns his third save for Rome