Drive’s rally falls short in the ninth; Crawdads win 3-2

Drive plate two in ninth, load bases with two outs before strikeout ends rally

A night after falling behind 13-1 after four innings, the Greenville Drive (20-30, 56-60) nearly completed a ninth inning comeback to force at least the bottom of the ninth and perhaps extra innings, but the rally would fall short on a bases-loaded strikeout, giving the Hickory Crawdads (33-16, 60-50) a 3-2 victory.

Tyler Miller’s one-out single in the top of the ninth drove in Cutter Coffey and Allan Castro and put Bryan Gonzalez on second before a walk to Karson Simas two batters later loaded the bases with two outs. The walk prompted a call to the bullpen for Hickory as they replaced Any Rodriguez with Seth Clark on the mound. Clark would get Eduardo Lopez on strikes to shut the door, sending Greenville to its eighth straight loss.

While the rough stretch continued for the Drive, Wednesday night marked perhaps the Drive’s best game in the losing streak as they held a team to less than five runs for the first time since their 11-2 victory over Greensboro on August 13.

Noah Song made his third start for the Drive, allowing just three hits and one run while ringing up one in his four innings of work. The lone run would come in the first inning, on an Abimelec Ortiz double which plated Wyatt Langford, the Texas Rangers' number prospect, after he singled in the previous at-bat.

The Drive held steady out of the bullpen as well as Robert Kwiatkowski spun two frames for the Drive. Though he’d give up two runs, a soft groundout that scored a runner from third in the fifth and another Ortiz RBI-double in the sixth, he’d finish the night allowing just two hits.

Brock Bell rebounded from a tough outing where he surrendered a Drive lead in an extra innings loss to Winston-Salem back on August 18 by spinning two scoreless frames that included a strikeout and just a lone hit.

The Drive would also pick up six hits in the game though only Castro would pick multiple hits as he went 2-for-4. He also extended his hitting streak to six games and his on-base streak to 13 games. Ronald Rosario recorded the Drive’s lone extra base hit, a double in the fifth.

The Greenville Drive (Boston Red Sox) return to action on Tuesday, August 23rd at 7:00 p.m. against the Hickory Crawdads (Texas Rangers) for a game two of the six-game series. Hickory leads the series, 2-0.