Hernandez Punches Out 10 but Emperors’ Luck Runs Out in Extras

SPARTANBURG, SC – After failing to capitalize on the extra-innings automatic runner in the eleventh and twelfth last night, Dylan Dreiling’s single to left field walked off the Emperors in game two.

Hub City hurler Aidan Curry issued three free passes and gave up a pair of hits across his first two innings. One of those walks, distributed to Rome’s Ambioris Tavarez, came around to score on catcher Julian Brock’s throwing error that was originally a passed ball, moving Tavarez from second to third to home in one ugly sequence. Following Curry’s fourth-inning departure, Victor Simeon, Mailon Felix and Joey Danielson pieced together the remaining five innings of scoreless, regulation baseball for the Spartanburgers.

Herick Hernandez, after a start to forget in Greensboro last week, rebounded in a big way Wednesday, striking out a career-high 10 Spartanburgers over 6.0 innings. Gleider Figuereo’s fifth-inning home run to right field was one of two extra-base hits off Hernandez. Dylan Dreiling’s sixth-inning double being the other.

Tied at one and the offense without a hit since the third inning, William Silva and Tyler LaPorte worked the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings to get game two to extras. Jace Grady’s leadoff double down the right field line in the tenth brought around the ghost runner, Mac Guscette.

That would be the only automatic runner Rome took advantage of, losing two innings later, 3-2, on a walk-off single from Dylan Dreiling. Left-hander Riley Frey starts game three in Spartanburg at 6:35PM ET on Thursday.