Castro homers again, Drive score six unanswered for 6-5 victory over Rome

Allan Castro added his fourth homer in the last three games, this one a game-tying shot in the sixth as the Greenville Drive (11-8, 37-48) scored six-unanswered runs from the third through the seventh inning to down the Rome Emperors (6-13, 42-41) 6-5 Friday night at AdventHealth Stadium.

Greenville faced a 3-0 deficit early on Friday, as an RBI-double from Stephen Paolini and RBI-single Justin Janas put the Drive in the hole in the second inning. Starter Blake Wehunt spun five innings for the Drive, allowing three runs on five hits with a walk and strikeout.

After escaping the second inning allowing just three runs in the tight spot, Wehunt allowed one baserunner over the final 10 batters he faced as he hit Sabin Ceballos with a pitch, shuitting down the Emperor's thoughts of a get right game.

Greenville slowly chipped away as Wehunt rebounded on the mound. Facing MLB rehab starter and third overall draft pick of the 2016 Draft, Ian Anderson, the Drive collected six hits and two runs, striking out twice to the crafty righty.

Miguel Bleis and Eduardo Lopez executed a double steal of second and home to put the Drive on the board in the third. After a quiet fourth, Juan Chacon led off with a triple and was rewarded by Luis Ravelo’s sac-fly to right to cut the lead to 3-2.

Castro barreled a Rob Griswold hanging breaking ball on the first pitch of his at-bat in the sixth, sending it screaming over the Drive bullpen in right field to knot the game at 3-3 with two outs.

Adam Smith, whose recent relief outings have been rough sledding, stifled the Emperors for two innings, allowing one hit and one walk while with a strikeout. The Drive rewarded Smith’s efforts with three runs in the seventh.

Lopez put runners on the corners as his single moved Ravelo to third. Lopez was ultimately perfect on the night at the plate, going 4-for-4 and accounting for two runs. Ravelo scored on a wild pitch, Bleis walked, Cutter Coffey reached on a fielder’s choice that scored Lopez and Ronald Rosario slapped a one-out RBI-single to make it 6-3.

Things would get dicey in the eighth as the Drive turned the ball over to reliever Cooper Adams in the eighth. Adams gave up back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners as Adam Zebrowski’s ground out scored Ceballos to cut the lead to 6-4.

E.J. Expositio chipped in a sac-fly to close the gap to one but Adams escaped the inning with a fly out to Castro in right.

Adams redeemed himself in the ninth, picking up back-to-back groundouts before he relinquished a Kevin Kilpatrick Jf. single. He’d get Ceballos to ground out to Ravelo to earn his first save of the season.

The Drive return to action on Saturday, July 13th at 7:00 p.m. at AdventHealth Stadium for game five of the six-game series with Rome. The Drive hold a 3-1 series lead and have earned at least a split of the series.\