Rocks Can't Keep Pace with Red Sox

Wilmington, DE - After taking the first two games of a four-game series against the Salem Red Sox, (23-24) the Wilmington Blue Rocks (20-29) hit a speed bump on Sunday afternoon losing the third game of the series, 7-2. Blue Rocks starting pitcher Jace Vines didn't have his best stuff on the mound, but battled his way through seven innings in a losing effort. Vance Vizcaino paced the offense with a pair of hits and drove in a run.
 

For the second time this series, the Red Sox scored first after the lone walk by Vines scored Salem's C.J. Chatham. A sacrifice fly to center would add another run and then a two-RBI single by Brett Netzer would give Salem the 4-0 lead.
Wilmington would waste no time with a response. Vizcaino started the scoring with an RBI single scoring Chris DeVito . Xavier Fernández would have added another tally, but he was thrown out at home by Salem's Tyler Hill on the play. Designated hitter Oliver Nunez followed with a single through the gap in left to cut the lead in half and make it a 4-2 ballgame.
The Red Sox made the comeback efforts just a little bit tougher. In the fourth inning, Santiago Espinal singled to left to score Tyler Hill. Then in the seventh, Bobby Dalbec hit a deep sacrifice fly into left field to bring Roldani Baldwin home to score and extend Salem's lead to 6-2. Baldwin would add a solo home-run in the top of the ninth to put the game out of reach, 7-2.
After coming off two strong outings, Vines struggled with command at times, but matched a season-high with seven innings of work. The right-hander gave up nine hits, six runs, four of which were earned, and one walk with only two strikeouts. His counter-part Bryan Mata pitched five innings only giving up four hits, two earned runs, and four walks while tossing four strikeouts.
The Rocks will try to close out and win the series on Memorial Day on Monday, May 28 with a 12:05 p.m. start time at Frawley Stadium. Wilmington will send right-hander Anthony Bender (1-2, 6.00 ERA) to the mound. Salem will start fellow righty Roniel Raudes (2-4, 3.83 ERA) to try and even the series. Matt Janus and Cory Nidoh will have the call on 89.7 WGLS-FM.
PEBBLES OF KNOWLEDGE:
The Blue Rocks kicked around the baseball in the third game of the series against Salem and tied a season-high with four defensive miscues in the loss Sunday afternoon. The Rocks had four errors in a game back on April 27 at home against the Winston-Salem Dash. The four-error game ended a season-high, three-game stretch in which they did not commit an error.
Kort Peterson and Chris DeVito extended their on-base streaks in the setback Sunday. Peterson reached base twice with a double and a walk to extend his on-base streak to nine games, one shy of his season-high which he set back on May 3-16. DeVito continued to push his season-long on-base streak to eight games with a pair of walks.
The Blue Crew fell a game short of matching their longest winning streak of the season at three games which they accomplished back on April 19-21 at Frederick. The Blue Rocks have won back-to-back games one other occasion aside from the first two games of this series. On April 28-29 at home against Winston-Salem, the Rocks took the last two games of a three-game series before falling at Potomac the on May 1.
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