Santana Homers in Crawdads Loss

The Augusta GreenJackets were able to make the most of their scoring opportunities to defeat the Hickory Crawdads 7-5 on Wednesday night at LP Frans Stadium.

The Crawdads, who came into the night with a 12-3 record since the MLB All-Star break, sent Alejandro Chiquillo to the hill against GreenJackets' starter Gensi Angeles.

Augusta got on the board in the second inning against Chiquillo, as Parker Brosius hit his first Carolina League homer to right-center field, putting Augusta on top 2-0.

The Crawdads responded with two runs in the bottom half of the second inning. Deward Tovar drew an RBI walk and Yolfran Castillo delivered a sacrifice fly for the Crawdads to even the score at 2-2.

The GreenJackets would take advantage of eight Hickory walks to score runs in the third, fourth and seventh innings to keep the Crawdads at arm’s length.

In the contest for Augusta (56-46, 21-15), the GreenJackets converted six of the eight walks into runs on the way to their first win of the six-game set.

In the seventh inning, Paulino Santana hit a high drive beyond the left field wall to cut the lead to 7-4. The blast for Santana was his thirteenth of the season.

Carter Beck claimed his second straight multi-hit night to lead the Augusta offense, while Kaden Carpenter collected a pair of safeties for the Crawdads.

Adiel Melendez earned the win for Augusta, moving his record to 6-1 on the year.

Alejandro Chiquillo suffered the loss for Hickory (61-40, 27-10), dropping his mark to 1-2 on the season.

Styven Paez earned his sixth save of 2026, tossing 1.1 innings of scoreless relief for the GreenJackets.

The Crawdads continue their series with Augusta at the Frans on Thursday as reigning Carolina League Pitcher of the Month Evan Siary takes the mound opposite Davis Polo. First pitch is slated for 7pm.