Drive blank Hot Rods 5-0 in doubleheader opener

Jhostynxon Garcia and Mikey Romero knocked solo homers , Allan Castro added a triple and Luis Ravelo chipped in two RBI to lift the Greenville Drive (13-9, 39-49) to a 5-0 victory over the Bowling Green Hot Rods (13-8, 49-38) in the first frame of Saturday’s twinbill at Fluor Field.

Gabriel Jackson, Cooper Adams, and Zach Fogell combined to hold the Hot Rods' vaunted offense to just three hits on the afternoon as the trio combined to ring up five. The win marked the Drive’s second consecutive shutout as they blanked Rome on Sunday, July 14th 2-0. It also marked their third shutout in the last six games.

After the rain washed out the series opener Friday night at Fluor Field, Jackson held firm on the mound in his second spot start of the season. He tossed three innings, allowing a lone hit in the second, issuing a lone walk with a strikeout across the 11 batters he faced.

Greenville struck first in the second, spurred by an eight-pitch at-bat from Garcia that resulted in a hard single to center field. Allan Castro followed up with his third triple of the season, slapping a hard fly ball to right field that evaded a diving Ryan Spikes to give the Drive a 1-0 lead. Luis Ravelo doubled the lead to 2-0 with a sac-fly.

Jackson finished off his final inning of work inducing two ground balls and a fly out to stifle the potent Bowling Green offense which entered the week as the number two overall offense in the South Atlantic League.

Romero added his third homer of the season taking a pitch deep into the Hot Rods’ bullpen to boost the lead to 3-0. Garcia added his homer in the fourth off Bowling Green reliever Adam Boucher, growing the Drive lead to 4-0.

Castro walked later in the inning and stole second before Luis Ravelo singled with two away to bring him in and tack on another run to the lead.

Adams took over in the fourth, walking Tre’ Morgan to leadoff the frame, but promptly picked him off at first before securing back-to-back outs. Adams struck out two in the fifth and picked up three-straight groundouts in the sixth before turning the ball over to Zach Fogell in the seventh.

Fogell allowed a lead off double to open the frame, but sent down the next three batters to secure the victory.

The Drive return to action at 7:00 p.m. for game two of the day’s doubleheader with Bowling Green. The Drive hold a 1-0 series lead.