Delmarva stops Red Sox home win streak at nine

The Salem Red Sox nine-game winning streak came to a close Wednesday night as the Delmarva Shorebirds took their first victory of the series, a 7-5 result.

After a poor pitching and defensive performance on Tuesday, the Shorebirds received some solid effort on the mound thanks to a splendid start by Carter Baumler and a near-perfect close from Ryan Long.

Making his fourth start after Tommy John Surgery, Baumler did not reach three innings for the first time since his recovery. But enter Joel Benitez, who allowed only two hits in his 2.1 innings pitched; the effort was good enough for him to get his first win of the campaign.

Meanwhile for the Red Sox, Angel Bastardo exited the game after 2.1 innings of work. After getting hit with a Luis Valdez line drive in the back, the right-handed pitcher never looked the same and was pulled for Miguel Suero.

The first pitcher out of the Red Sox bullpen did not have his best stuff today as he only lasted 1.1 innings, which saw him give up three earned runs and was handed his second loss of the year.

Although the rest of the bullpen wasn’t too bad as Felix Cepeda and Maceo Campbell only gave up five hits in the final 5.1 innings.

For the second game in a row, the Red Sox got an early start as Eddinson Paulino scored in the bottom of the first to take a 1-0 lead, but the Shorebirds struck back with two runs in the top of the second, thanks to Stiven Acevedo’s RBI double, to snatch their first lead of the week.

The back-and-forth festivities continued through the next couple of innings as Salem and Delmarva traded single-run blows to have both sides knotted at three runs through three innings of work.

That’s when the Shorebirds delivered their best inning of the night with a three-run fourth inning after their 3-4 part of the order, Noelberth Romero and Trendon Craig, respectively, recorded back-to-back singles to jump their lead to three.

As Salem began to creep back into the game with a run in the fourth and the eighth, Delmarva received a crucial insurance run in the ninth to bring the game to its final score.

Game three of the six-game series will be played Thursday at 7:05 p.m. at Salem Memorial Ballpark.

First Pitch: 7:09 p.m.

Time of Game: 2:53

Attendance: 1,872

Venue: Salem Memorial Ballpark