Polo, Essenburg Post Career Days as Augusta Downs Columbia

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Polo, Essenburg Post Career Days as Augusta Downs Columbia

Dominant Start and Three Homers from Essenburg Lead GreenJackets Past Fireflies

NORTH AUGUSTA, SC: Davis Polo tossed a career high 7.2 innings while Conor Essenburg picked up his first professional three-homer game as the GreenJackets (18-13, 53-44) knocked off the Columbia Fireflies (16-15, 50-47) 8-5 Tuesday night at home.

Polo has had the best campaign of his professional career, and tonight was a masterclass in everything that has made him succeed. Polo leaned on all three of his pitches, but favored his stellar change-up as he tied a career high with nine strikeouts. The righty allowed a solo homer to Roni Cabrera to lead off the third, and did not allow another hit, before punctuating his evening with back-to-back strikeouts in the eighth.

Essenburg was just as dominant at the plate as Polo was on the mound, continuing his tear from last week in a perfect night. Essenburg, the reigning Carolina League Player of the Week, clubbed homers in the first, second, and eighth innings to become the second GreenJacket this year with three homers in a game. Essenburg has now homered in three consecutive games, and has 14 on the year in 57 games played.

It was a home run barrage for the GreenJackets early, as all eight runs on the night came via the long ball. Augusta totaled four off of starter Ryan McDonagh, chasing him after three innings with a big deficit on his back. In addition to Essenburg’s homers, Junior Garcia poked a two-run blast in the second inning, and Nick Montgomery nearly broke a window in the Clubhouse Apartment Building with a solo shot in the third.

Columbia made things interesting late, scoring four runs against Logan Forsythe to bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth. Lewis Sifontes was summoned for the one-out save, and retired Connor Rasmussen to secure the victory for Augusta. The GreenJackets are now 14-2 on Tuesdays this year, and undefeated in series openers at home this year.

Tomorrow, a new face takes the mound at SRP Park, as eighteen year old Gensi Angeles makes his Single-A debut after a strong season in the Florida Complex League. He’ll take on a patient Fireflies offense that has hit righties very well this year, and now will be out for revenge after their loss tonight. It is still undetermined who will start for Columbia, who used five relievers tonight and added a handful of new pitchers to the roster this morning.

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