Welker's Big Day Not Enough for Tourists

ASHEVILLE-- The Asheville Tourists dropped an Education Day game to the Hagerstown Suns on Tuesday morning by a final score of 6-3. Asheville's third-baseman Colton Welker did everything he could to keep the Tourists in the game but in the end Welker's performance wasn't enough.
One day after Welker drove in a season-high five runs in part of a 13-2 Tourists win, the Coral Springs, Florida native delivered a perfect game at the plate. Welker gave the Tourists their first run of the game with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the first inning. His next at-bat was a line drive single to center that gave Asheville a rally with runners at first and second with no outs in the fourth. They ended up with no runs in the inning.

In the seventh, Welker greeted Hagerstown's first reliever with a 423-foot Home Run to straight away centerfield. In the ninth, the Suns brought in another reliever to face Welker only to see the third baseman smack a double off the left field wall. Welker finished the last two games 6-for-8 with two Home Runs and now leads the entire South Atlantic League in hitting with a .355 batting average.
Erick Julio drew the start for the Tourists and the right-handed pitcher allowed a pair of runs in the top of the first. Julio settled down after the early damage and retired 12 straight Suns hitters. In the sixth, Hagerstown managed three more runs thanks in large part to Anderson Franco's Home Run to left.
The Tourists hung around the whole game. Asheville had a few unfortunate bounces go against them and hit into several loud outs. Carlos Pena picked up the win for the visitors who ended up stealing three out of four games against Asheville.
Following the off day, the Tourists head to Greenville for a Thursday night double-header. Game one will start at 5:30pm.