Richmond Snaps Rock Cats' Win Streak

New Britain, CT - The Rock Cats fell to the Richmond Flying Squirrels by the score of 7-5 on Wednesday evening at New Britain Stadium.

 

New Britain spent majority of the night playing catchup after the Squirrels hung a four run, five hit second inning on starter LHP Pat Dean. RF Devin Harris started the scoring with a two-run home run, bringing in 1B Angel Villalona, who led off with a single. The other runs came off of a sacrifice fly from LF Skyler Stromsmoe and a fielding error that allowed C Eliezer Zambrano to cross the plate.

 

LF Daniel Ortiz continued to swing a hot bat when he cracked a solo home run off of LHP Kelvin Marte to put the first Rock Cats run on the board in the bottom half of the second.

 

Richmond increased their lead to 5-1 when it was Harris who homered for the second time of the night. These were home runs number one and two for the rightfielder.

 

New Britain continued to chip away in the bottom of the third and this time it was an RBI single from DH Nate Hanson, bringing around CF Corey Wimberly, who reached on an infield-style single. Wimberly paced the Cats with three hits and two runs on the night.

 

More runs would come in the sixth and seventh innings for the home club. Ortiz launched a triple off of Richmond reliever RHP Edwin Quirarte and came home one batter later on a groundball hit to third by C Matt Koch. New Britain made it a 5-4 game in the bottom of the seventh when RF Mike Kvasnicka hit his third home run of the season.

 

The Squirrels picked up two insurance runs in the top half of the eighth to put the game out of reach for the Rock Cats. RHP Matt Summers allowed runs on a wild pitch that pushed Stromsmoe across the plate and an RBI double for DH Mario Lisson.

 

Dean suffered the loss, going only 4 1/3 innings and allowing five runs, four earned on nine hits. He walked one and did not record any strikeouts. His record drops to 2-2.

 

Lefthander Marte evens his record to 2-2 as he allowed just two runs on six hits. He did not walk or strike out a batter. RHP Derek Law picks up his 11 save in 12 opportunities.

 

The final game of this four-game set will take place on Thursday morning with a 10:35 a.m. start time. New Britain sends RHP Virgil Vasquez to the mound while Richmond throws out RHP Kyle Crick.