Down East Pitching Staff Super in Shutout Win

KINSTON, NC - Stellar pitching served the Wood Ducks as they claimed game three of the series with the Dash 2-0 on Wednesday night. Emerson Martinez, Grant Zawadzki, and Ricardo Rodríguez combined for the seventh shutout of the season.

In the eighth, Rodriguez came one batter shy of tying a major league record for consecutive batters retired. His streak was snapped on a two-out double by Telvin Nash at 45 in a row. He still locked down his 12th save with Down East in as many tries this year.
Martinez wiggled out of trouble early while facing adversity. In both the second and third innings, the Dash loaded the bases with two outs aided by two Wood Duck errors. In his 10th start Down East, Martinez managed two groundouts to third to end both innings and started to ride cruise control.
The offense took advantage of two errors in the third to plate both of its runs in unearned fashion. Ledarious Clark reached on an infield single coupled with a Brady Conlan throwng error to reach second. Matt Lipka was hit by a pitch from Dane Dunnning and both runners advanced to second and third on Brallan Perez's groundout.
Yanio Perez dribbled a ball toward third again where Conlan threw high to first base, pulling Nash away from the bag. Perez was deemed safe and Lipka never stopped running around third and scored with Clark.
Dunning would take it from there as he only allowed five hits over his seven innings with eight strikeouts. Yet, the two unearned runs would give him the loss.
After six, Martinez was done with seven strikeouts - matching his season-high. Zawadzki worked a perfect seventh inning in his second home appearance for the Wood Ducks before giving way to Rodriguez for his second consecutive two-inning save.
He retired the first two batters with a strikeout and a groundout, but Nash connected down the left field line for a clean double and ended the streak at 45. It didn't matter for Ricardo, as he finished the ninth without a hitch for the win.
The finale of the Dash and the Wood Ducks in Kinston comes at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday night. Left-hander Brett Martin (1-2, 3.12) will be activated off the disabled list and make his first start since May 6th. He will be countered by recently promoted lefty Bernardo Flores for the Dash.
You can listen to every pitch of the 2017 season live on Sports/Talk 960 The Bull, or streamed on the TuneIn Radio app.