Braves Walk Off in 14th For Nine Straight

The Rome Braves picked up their ninth straight victory, defeating the Asheville Tourists Thursday night, 6-5 in fourteen innings at State Mutual Stadium before 2,385 fans.

The Rome Braves picked up their ninth straight victory, defeating the Asheville Tourists Thursday night, 6-5 in fourteen innings at State Mutual Stadium before 2,385 fans. The win ties the second longest win streak of nine also done in 2016. The franchise record for consecutive victories is 11 and was set in 2004.  
Asheville cracked the scoreboard four times in the third inning on RBI singles by Willie Abreu, Tyler Nevin, Bobby Wernes, and Vince Fernandez for the 4-0 score. The Braves quickly tied the game 4-4 in the fourth thanks to run scoring base hits by Kurt Hoekstra and Kevin Josephina and a two run single by Marcus Mooney. Asheville regained the lead in the fifth on a sacrifice fly RBI by Nevin for the 5-4 score.
In the eighth, Leudys Baez started the inning with an infield single, moved to second on a groundout, reached third on a wild pitch, and scored on Marcus Mooney's double to left to tie the contest 5-5.
The game would go all the way to the 14th inning before Cristian Pache would reach on an error, followed by a Lucas Herbert hit by pitch. This set up Isranel Wilson for the walkoff single to give the Braves the 6-5 victory. Rome's bullpen was lights out, as Bladimir Matos, Troy Conyers and Taylor Lewis combined for eight innings of shutout relief.
Lewis (1-1) gets the win for Rome while Austin Moore (0-1) suffers the loss for Asheville.
The Braves and Tourists play again tomorrow at 6 p.m. with fireworks following the game.