Game #79 - Road Game #40 - Saturday – 7:05
RHP Gonzalez Germen (5-3, 4.22) vs. LHP Mike Kickham (1-4, 3.83)
Lake Olmstead Stadium, Augusta, GA
Radio: News/Talk 630 and sandgnats.com
Tonight: The first-half champion Gnats, winners of seven games in a row, play the second game of a three-game series in Augusta. The Gnats are 5-0 on their current seven-game road trip. The Gnats return home for an Independence Day Fireworks Spectacular on Monday, July 4.
Last Night: SS Wilfredo Tovar drove home the go-ahead run in the top of the seventh to send the Gnats past the GreenJackets 3-2.
Now Pitching: RHP Gonzalez Germen is scheduled to make his 16th appearance and his 14th start tonight. He is 13th in the South Atlantic League with 70 strikeouts. Germen has given up nine runs on 11 hits in 4.2 innings over his last two starts. He’s also yielded a home run in each of his last three starts. Germen’s 74.2 innings pitched are second among currents Gnats behind Ryan Fraser (83). Germen spent most of the 2010 season with Kingsport in the Appalachian League where he was 2-5 with a 3.69 ERA in 61 innings over 10 starts with 54 strikeouts and 11 walks. He made two starts with Savannah to finish out the year. On August 27th, in his Savannah debut, in game two of a double-header against Charleston, he took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and a shutout into the seventh. The Gnats are 7-6 when Germen starts and have supported him with 4.6 runs per game (60 runs/13 starts), the second-best run support of any Savannah starter.
Bully for Bonfe: Joe Bonfe has hit safely in his last seven games, going 10-for-23 (.435) in that time. Bonfe, who played in just 22 games before the All-Star Break, has played in the last eight straight contests for the Gnats and eight of nine in the second half.
Late Inning Magic: Yesterday, the Gnats scored the go-ahead run in the seventh inning, a common happening recently as Savannah has scored in the go-ahead run in the seventh inning or later in every single one of their five wins on this road trip. The Gnats have taken the lead in the fifth inning or later in every single one of their eight second-half wins.
Top Gnats: The Gnats’ 47-31 overall record is the best among all SAL teams, a game and a half better than Hickory’s 45-32 mark. The Gnats are 16 games over .500 for the first time. Savannah is alone in first place and leads the Asheville Tourists and Greenville Drive by two games in the second half Southern Division standings.
June Recap: the Gnats clinched the first half championship on June 14 in a month when the team was 18-8, 12-3 at home and 6-5 on the road. The Gnats’ .692 winning percentage in June was their best in any month in 2011, narrowly eclipsing the team’s .690 mark (20-9) in May.
Seven Up: The Gnats have won seven in a row from Augusta and Rome by a combined score of 38-20. The Gnats have scored five runs or more in four of the seven games on their winning streak, which is their second-best of 2011. The Gnats won eight games in a row from June 7-15.
Strong Arms: The Gnats have the SAL’s best ERA (3.20), 41 hundredths of a run better than second-place Hagerstown. The Gnats have allowed the fewest hits (603), and have the second-best WHIP (1.21), one one-hundredth behind West Virginia.
Vs. Augusta: The Gnats are 10-2 against Augusta this year, 6-1 at home and 4-1 on the road. The Gnats and GreenJackets are in a stretch where they play each other on four out of six weekends.
from team press release
--
No comments:
Post a Comment