Saturday’s Back and Forth Contest Falls in the Hands of Delmarva

SALEM, VA – A four run top of the tenth inning led the Delmarva Shorebirds (57-44) over the Salem Red Sox (59-42) on Saturday night. Delmarva relied on big offensive nights from Darrell Hernaiz and Billy Cook in their 57th victory.

The Shorebirds sprung out to an early lead in the first when a slumping Billy Cook hit a towering drive to left field making it a 1-0 ballgame. The next few innings would be scoreless until the fourth when Delmarva struck again. After getting a few men on Ryne Ogren knocked in Coby Mayo on a single to right field to make it a 2-0 game.

In the bottom of the inning the Red Sox would get their first hit and run of the game on Blaze Jordan’s first double of the year scoring Nathan Hickey to cut the lead in half. A few batters later Matthew Lugo hit a sacrifice fly to deep left field driving in Nick Decker and evened the score at two.

Ceddanne Rafaela broke the 2-2 stalemate in the bottom of the sixth with his tenth home run of the season, a solo shot to left. What seemed like the go-ahead run, turned out to be all but such. Delmarva tied the game in the eighth on a Darell Hernaiz single to right field scoing Donta’ Williams and sent the game to extras.

Extra innings featured a lopsided result in favor of the Shorebirds. Delmarva put up a four run 10th with RBI’s from Ryne Ogren, Darell Hernaiz, Billy Cook and Colton Cowser. The Shorebirds closed it out in the bottom of the tenth to emerge victorious, 7-3.

Delmarva and Salem will continue their series on Sunday for the finale at 4:05 PM.

First pitch: 6:07 PM

Time of game: 3:36

Attendance: 4,519

Venue: Salem Memorial Ballpark