Swing and a Miss; Tourists Fall 7-4

ASHEVILLE-- The Asheville Tourists fell to the Rome Braves for the tenth time this season on Friday night. Strikeouts were a big reason why. The Tourists struck out a season-high 15 times.
Rome began the scoring with a solo Home Run to lead off the third inning. Asheville countered with a three-run bottom of the third to take a 3-1 lead. Brian Serven hit an RBI single and Willie Abreu launched a two-run Home Run.

The lead was short lived. Rome plated a pair of runs in the fourth to tie the game. The Braves added another in the fifth and one more in the sixth. Asheville did manage to score once in the bottom of the sixth on a Rome error; however, two more runs in the seventh inning gave the Braves their biggest lead and final winning margin at 7-4.
Alan Rangel started for Rome and pitched five innings. The right-hander recorded nine strikeouts. Taylor Lewis added a pair of strikeouts over two innings and Bladimir Matos sat down four batters by way of the strikeout. Serven was Asheville's only player who did not strikeout.
The Tourists finished with five hits, three of which came from Abreu. They went just 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position while the Braves ended up 4-for-10 in the same situations. Erick Julio suffered the loss but pitched well over the first two innings. Saturday night's game between Asheville and Rome will begin at 6:05pm.