Cards Even Series Behind Strong Sunday Pitching
KINGSPORT, Tenn.- A day following a combined 25 runs off 32 hits between the Kingsport Mets and the Johnson City Cardinals, Sunday's affair saw the two clubs go for five runs off 16 hits as the Cardinals narrowly escaped Hunter Wright Stadium with a 3-2 victory in Game 2 of
KINGSPORT, Tenn.- A day following a combined 25 runs off 32 hits between the Kingsport Mets and the Johnson City Cardinals, Sunday's affair saw the two clubs go for five runs off 16 hits as the Cardinals narrowly escaped Hunter Wright Stadium with a 3-2 victory in Game 2 of the three-game set.
Zeros spanned across the scoreboard for the first four innings of play as neither offense could get anything going. In fact, both the Mets (9-13) and Cardinals (10-14) combined for only two hits in the first four frames as starting pitching dominated with 12 strike outs during the time.
Johnson City finally broke the scoreless ballgame in the top of the fifth inning when Chase Pinder singled to right field to bring in
The visitors tacked on two more runs with a run in both inning seven and nine to go up 3-0 heading to the bottom of the ninth inning. In the seventh, Irving Lopez drilled a sacrifice fly to deep center to plate the first run while he again drove in another two innings later with a single to left field.
Down by three runs, Kingsport looked to make it back-to-back walk-off wins Sunday afternoon and mace things interesting by scoring two runs in the frame off two hits and an error. But the home team ultimately fell 3-2 in the second game of the series.
The K-Mets, who managed only two nine innings runs off seven hits throughout the day had no one record multi hits on the afternoon. Both Uriarte and Gladu recorded RBIs on the day while Jeremy Vasquez and Uriarte scored the only runs for the home team.
Johnson City plated three runs off nine hits on Sunday as Lopez drove in two and Pinder singled in another.
Schlesener (1-1) picked up a well-deserved win for the Cardinals following five-plus innings of scoreless baseball with a career-high 10 strikeouts on the day. The southpaw strung together five-consecutive strikeouts at one point while retiring the first 10 batters he faced on the afternoon. Evan Guillory pitched three-plus inning of relief of two-run baseball while Jacob Patterson tallied his fifth save of the season.
Taking the loss in the outing was
The series finale is set to begin Monday night at 6:30 p.m. from Hunter Wright Stadium. Coverage of the contest can be found on the Kingsport Mets Baseball Network at kmets.com or on Tune In Radio with the Braeden's Barbeque Pregame Show starting at 6:15 p.m. Carlos Hernandez gets the nod for the Kingsport Mets on the bump.