Suns Eliminated from First-Half Title Contention

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Hagerstown Suns entered Friday night's game against the Lexington Legends looking to hit the reset button after a four-game sweep at the hands of the Kannapolis Intimidators. With Kannapolis winning on Friday, the Suns had to win to keep their first-half title hopes alive, which would earn an automatic South Atlantic League playoff berth. An early back and forth game wound up going the way of the home team, with a 14-3 victory being earned by Lexington. The loss drops Hagerstown to 37-31 in the first half and Lexington is now at the .500 mark, 34-34.
Things got started early for the Suns, an encouraging sign given how the road trip began. With one down, Aldrem Corredor ripped his 19^th double on the season to left field to get the first baserunner of the game for Hagerstown. Daniel Johnson followed on a 1-1 count and did the same, with his double to right field. Ordinarily this would score a run, but Corredor had to wait to make sure the ball was not caught, and could only advance to third. Sheldon Neuse made sure the run would score, and did so with a groundout to shortstop, pushing across the first run of the game for the visitors. Lexington quickly had an answer against Suns starter Carlos Pena, who allowed the tying run in the second. A hit batter, soft single, and walk loaded the bases with just one out, and Rudy Martin hit a sacrifice fly to left, tying the game at 1-1.
The Suns recaptured the lead in the fourth and did so completely on the back of two-out hitting. Jake Noll knocked his tenth double of the season to center field, and Nick Banks singled back up the middle to score Noll and put the Suns in front 2-1. Again, an answer would be found by Lexington, scoring twice in the fourth. Pena hit another batter and allowed a single to lead off the inning, forcing a brief meeting at the mound. After rebounding with a strikeout, he allowed a triple off the bat of Marten Gasparini to score both men on base and put the Suns behind 3-2.
The sixth inning began with a Corredor walk and a Neuse single with one out, and once again the Suns were threatening with men on. With two down, things looked grim again Ofreidy Gomez (3-7), the starter for the Legends, but Banks came through again. He doubled to left field to drive home Corredor and tie the game up with his second RBI of the night.
Steven Fuentes (2-3) came on in relief of Pena, who finished the night after going five innings, allowing six hits, three runs, one walk, and four strikeouts. Entering in a tie game, Fuentes only needed to keep things at bay and give his bats a chance in the later innings. Unfortunately for Hagerstown, the Lexington bats were the ones awoken. John Brontsema mashed his second homer of the season to left center on the first pitch of the inning, putting the Legends in front 4-3. Two more runs would score in the inning with two outs after a double from Khalil Lee and a single from Angelo Castellano made it 6-3. To put the game away, four more runs were pushed across in the bottom of the seventh for the Legends, highlighted by a three-run home run from Rudy Martin to make it 10-3. Yeison Melo cleared a bases loaded situation in the eighth with a double, pouring it on at 13-3.
With the Kannapolis Intimidators winning their game against West Virginia, the Suns are two games behind Kannapolis with two games to play. The Intimidators own the head-to-head tiebreaker, eliminating the Suns from first-half title contention. Game two of the series is on Saturday at 6:35 PM, and the series wraps up on Sunday at 2:05 PM.