Pena Leads Wood Ducks to Third Straight Win

WINSTON-SALEM, NC - Richelson Peña continued the recent trend of strong starting pitching with his first nine-inning complete game in his career in an 8-1 Wood Ducks win over the Dash. The win marks the first three-game winning streak since games three, four, and five of the season in April.

A balanced offensive attacked featured multi-hit games from Eduard Pinto, Luis La O, and Arturo Lara while seven of nine starters reached base. The offense peaked in the sixth, scoring five runs on four hits in the frame, putting the rout on the Dash at the time.
The Woodies got on the board in the third inning, when Lara led off with a single and scored from second on Pinto's RBI double. La O made sure that wasn't all the Woodies would get in the inning thanks to his RBI single to make it 2-0 Down East.
Pena allowed a hit in the second and a walk in the third, but then began a stretch of 13 batters in a row retired. During the streak, Winston-Salem did not have a single at-bat beyond five pitches against Pena.
In the fifth, Ledarious Clark reached on his second walk of the game, then proceeded to steal second. Down East stole three bases on Zack Collins - the league's leading run-controller behind home, entering the game throwing out baserunners at a 47% rate. Josh Morgan scored Clark with a single up the middle.
The five-run fifth started in innocent fashion, a La O single but it was followed by a frightening hit-by-pitch to Michael O'Neill in his helmet. He remained in the game and proceeded to steal second while La O scored on a wild pitch.
After a walk to Tyler Sanchez , Dash starter Aron McRee was lifted for Andre Wheeler. Lara made him pay on the first pitch of his outing with a double to deep center to score two more runs. Two batters later, Pinto rocked a line drive home run over the wall in right to mark the score at 8-0.
Throughout the entire game, the Wood Duck defense was superb. Both O'Neill in right and Clark in center chased down fly balls that could have gone for extra bases. Josh Altmann also made a leaping catch at first and was busy with ground balls his way all night.
Entering the ninth, Pena had 89 pitches and had a chance to compete a "Maddux" game (Complete game + shutout + less than 100 pitches). Pena fell behind 3-0 on Trey Michalczewski before he went opposite field on the 3-1 pitch over the wall in right to end the shutout.
Pena retired the next three batters in order to finish his first ever nine-inning complete game. He previous high of eight innings came in the Dominican Summer League in 2012 - his second year as a professional.
Game two of the series is on Saturday night at 6:30 p.m.. Woodies right-hander Pedro Payano will look to defend his pitcher of the week crown against the ace of the Dash, lefty Tanner Banks. You can listen to every pitch of the 2017 season live on Sports/Talk 960 The Bull or streamed on the TuneIn Radio app.