Wood Ducks Pitch Their Way to a Series Win

KINSTON, NC - Down East claimed its first series win in a month thanks to six shutout innings from Wes Benjamin and the bullpen locking down a tight victory over Carolina, 3-1. Ricardo Rodríguez earned his seventh save in as many tries to tie the league lead. Adam Choplick, Omarlin Lopez, and Jason Richman were all credited with holds in the win.

All three runs were scored in the first five innings for the Woodies with only one run-scoring hit - a solo home run from Brallan Perez in the fifth. Eduard Pinto crossed home in the first on a Luis La O groundout.
Later in the third inning, La O led off with a single and advanced to third base on two wild pitches. With Chuck Moorman batting, a ball was in the dirt just to the left of Mudcats catcher Cooper Hummel.
La O broke for home and appeared to be a sitting duck. He slid on the fair side of home and "limboed" away from Hummel's tag to score safely.
Benjamin was dealing for his six innings. 11 of his 19 batters had a two-strike count while he collected five strikeouts. He never allowed a runner to reach third base during his entire outing. He also tossed a season-high 101 pitches in his third win of the season.
An unearned run was scored in the seventh off of Choplick. A one-out double by Luis Aviles Jr. was followed by a Hummel groundout to move Aviles to third. Weston Wilson hit a grounder to third that was snagged by Perez, but his throw to third pulled Altmann away from the bag and the throwing error allowed a run to score.
Things got interesting again in the eighth after Lopez allowed the first two batters to reach on a double and a walk. He struck out Jake Gatewood before he was lifted for Richman to face back-to-back lefties in the Carolina order.
Richman got Lucas Erceg to ground out up the first base line, then Trent Clark to ground out to first to control the threat. Rodriguez fired the ninth inning in 1-2-3 fashion, for the third consecutive outing. It was the fifth time he retired the ninth in order this season.
The previous series win also came at the hands of the Mudcats in the series from April 25th-27th at Five County Stadium. Buies Creek also lost both games of its doubleheader with Salem, so the Woodies sit eight and a half games back for the first-half race.
Next, the Wood Ducks hit the road for seven games in eight days - starting with four in Winston-Salem for the first time this year. First pitch of Friday night's game is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. and you can listen to every pitch of the 2017 season live on Sports/Talk 960 The Bull or streamed live on the TuneIn Radio app.