Salem Sweeps Series Opening DH in Walk-Off Fashion

SALEM, VA – The Red Sox explode offensively with 20 runs in games one and two of the series on Thursday night’s doubleheader. Pitching headlines game one for the Red Sox (62-42) and Salem’s comeback efforts come alive against Fredericksburg (37-66) in game two.

Game one: Salem didn’t take long in game one to get going offensively. In the bottom of the second inning they put up a seven-spot led by Matthew Lugo who drove in two runs on his 17th double of the season to right field scoring Niko Kavadas and Blaze Jordan. Angel Maita chipped in along with Ceddanne Rafaela driving in runs in the second as well.

In the bottom of the third the Sox added a couple more on Ceddanne Rafaela’s eighth triple of the season driving in Angel Maita. Tyler McDonough drove in a run on his first double of the season to make it a 9-0 game.

Fredericksburg would get their lone run in the top of the fifth on a Jose Sanchez double to left scoring Jaden Fein. The Sox would fire right back with four runs of their own on a Tyler McDonough RBI double and Gilberto Jimenez’s first RBI of the game. The Sox would capture their 13th run of the game on a Matthew Lugo solo shot in the bottom of the sixth. That insurance pushed the final score to 13-1.

Game two: The back end of the doubleheader featured a far more back and forth contest. Scoring started in the top of the first inning for Fredericksburg when Jacob Young grounded an 0-2 pitch into center field scoring Jeremy De La Rosa to give the Nats an early 1-0 advantage.

Nick Decker evened things up on an RBI single scoring Tyler McDonough to make the score 1-1. That evener would mark as a constant throughout the evening for the Red Sox. The FredNats fired back with runs in the second and third on RBIs from Jeremy De La Rosa and Juan Paulino.

The Red Sox returned the favor tying the game at three with a Nick Northcut RBI double to left center field scoring Matthew Lugo. The Sox would add another run scoring Northcut on a double play that Jonathan Diaz grounded into.

In the fifth and sixth, Fredericksburg took the lead in the top half of the inning, and Salem tied the game up in the bottom half. It wasn’t until the seventh when that trend was snapped. The Sox tied the game at six in the bottom of the seventh, then loaded the bases for Jonathan Diaz. Diaz laced a fastball down the left field line and won the game for the Red Sox on a walk-off single. The final score of game two was 7-6.

The Red Sox and Nationals battle for game three of the series Friday night at 7:05 PM

First pitch:

Game 1: 5:29 PM

Game 2: 8:42 PM

Time of game one: 2:36

Time of game two: 2:40

Attendance: 2,044

Venue: Salem Memorial Ballpark