Kannapolis Drops Series with Greensboro to End First Half

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. - The Kannapolis Intimidators (28-40) finished off their series with the Greensboro Grasshoppers (44-25) on Sunday afternoon with Devon Perez (L, 0-1) making his first start of the season. Kannapolis dropped their third-straight game, though, 5-2.
Just as Greensboro managed to do twice already in the series, they jumped on Kannapolis early in the first inning. After a double from Ji-Hwan Bae and a walk from Mason Martin, Pat Dorrian singled to left field to score both and put Greensboro up 2-0.
Back-to-back extra-base hits in the bottom of the second cut the deficit in half for Kannapolis. First, Corey Zangari hit a ball off the wall for a double. Then Amado Nunez hit his first triple of the season to bring Zangari home making things 2-1.
In the following frame in the top of the third, Greensboro got that run right back. Lolo Sanchez tripled on a ball that Alex Destino actually saved from going over the wall. Following that, Bae hit his second double of the game which brought in Sanchez to extend the lead back to 3-1.
In the following top-half inning in the fourth, a Michael Gretler double scored Dorrian to bring the score to 4-1. This was also Perez's last inning of work which brought his line for the day to read as: 4 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 3 K, BB.
Kevin Folman came in relief and tossed three innings of scoreless work while striking out two to take us to the bottom of the seventh.
Bryce Bush led off the frame with a solo shot (5) to left field, his second of the series, cutting Greensboro's lead to 4-2.
After a clean eighth inning of work, Bennett Sousa gave up a solo home run to Jack Herman (3), which gave the Grasshoppers a 5-2 lead as Kannapolis was down to its final three outs.
Despite threatening with two on and the tying run at the plate, Kannapolis wasn't able to take advantage and failed to get any runs across and fell 5-2 on a Father's Day afternoon.
Kannapolis will head into the All-Star Break over the next three days, and will begin a homestand against Augusta on Thursday, June 20.