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Charleston Puts Breaks On Delmarva Win Streak

Shorebirds Streaks Halted at Five in a Row
April 29, 2016

SALISBURY, MD - An untimely day off after yesterday's rain-out slowed Delmarva's recent offensive momentum in a 5-0 series-opening loss against the Charleston RiverDogs on Friday night at Arthur W. Perdue Stadium. The Shorebirds had eight hits in the loss but stranded 10 on base against three different Charleston pitchers.

Reid Love pitched better than his final line indicated. He was tagged for four runs on seven hits in 5.2 innings, but all four runs left Shorebirds fan scratching their heads.

Delmarva (12-9) surrendered a run in the first inning after Jeff Hendrix led off the game on a soft infield single, Hoy Jun Park singled to right field and Thairo Estrada hit into a 4-6-3 double play.

Chris Gittens led off the top of the second inning for the RiverDogs with a liner into the left-center field gap. The ball got past Shorebirds speedy center fielder Cedric Mullins and went all the way to the fence. Mullins thought the ball was trapped below the wall and he put his arms in the air and turned to look for umpire Ryan Barneycastle. Play was not ruled dead and Gittens rounded the bases to score on an inside the park home run. Once he crossed home plate, Barneycastle began to run out to see if the ball was truly unplayable, but Mullins picked it up and threw it back into the infield. The homer was Gittens' first of the season and it was the first home run hit in this ballpark this season, a stretch of 10 games thus far.

Love battled in the next three frames to prevent any more runs from coming across, but the third and fifth were labor-some innings. Charleston broke through again in the sixth one a two-out flare up the middle from Angel Aguilar, scoring both Jhalan Jackson and Gittens to give Charleston a 4-0 lead.

The RiverDogs added their final run in the eighth on Kendall Coleman's perfectly placed dribbler up the first base line. Jackson scored on the play, which went officially as an unearned run because he had advanced previously to third on a passed ball.

On top of stranding 10 runners on base, the Shorebirds finished the night 0-10 at the plate with runners in scoring position. Daris Vargas and Anyelo Gomez each struck out two Shorebirds in five relief innings of Yefrey Ramirez. Ramirez did not earn a decision in his first career South Atlantic League appearance.

The Shorebirds continue the homestand tomorrow night at 7:05 pm in the second game of the four game series. Ofelky Peralta makes his fourth start of the season for the Shorebirds. There will be a post-game fireworks show for the second time this season, presented by Dr. Susan Vickers at Seaside Smiles.