Grand Slam Seals Deal for Fireflies
COLUMBIA, SC – The Fireflies came back and won 7-6 behind a seventh inning Hayden Dunhurst grand slam with two outs Sunday night at Segra Park. Dunhurst entered the at-bat 0-10 in the Carolina League and was working against Holden Powell, who had retired the first 15 batters he faced
COLUMBIA, SC – The Fireflies came back and won 7-6 behind a seventh inning Hayden Dunhurst grand slam with two outs Sunday night at Segra Park.
Dunhurst entered the at-bat 0-10 in the Carolina League and was working against Holden Powell, who had retired the first 15 batters he faced in the Carolina League this season. He swung at the first pitch and sent a towering homer over the right field fence to give the Fireflies their first lead of the ball game.
The seventh inning rally started with a Lizandro Rodriguez two out triple before Matt Merrill issued back-to-back walks to Erick Peña and Brennon McNair to create the jam.
Cooper McKeehan (S, 8) shut the door in the ninth to earn his team-leading eighth save of the season. He followed up a 1-2-3 eighth inning from Samuel Valerio, who has three scoreless innings in his last two outings.
Sammy Infante started a rally cry for the Fredericksburg Nationals in the third. The third baseman hit a one out double that started off four-consecutive productive at-bats for Fredericksburg. Next, Blake Klassen singled to put runners on the corners. After a sacrifice fly from Cortland Lawson, Wilmer Perez hit an RBI single to put the Nationals in front 3-1.
Bryan Caceres walked the first two batters of the bottom of the third and hit the next two. Dionmy Salon was able to slap an RBI single to right to score Jean Ramirez to drive the Fireflies within one run, but Columbia couldn’t take advantage of the bases loaded opportunity to tie the game in the third.
The Fireflies were able to tie it up in the home half of the second with a little bit of two out magic. Erick Peña had a hard hit single go off the glove of Blake Klassen before stealing second and coming around on a Brennon McNair RBI single to make the score 1-1.
Fredericksburg started off hot, sending six batters to the plate in the first inning against Mauricio Veliz. Veliz served up a solo homer to Paul Witt for his 10th long ball of the season to give Fredericksburg a 1-0 lead.
After a pair of off days, the Fireflies will kick-off a series with the Augusta GreenJackets Wednesday evening at 7:05 pm. The Fireflies will start RHP Steven Zobac (1-0, 1.43 ERA) and Augusta has yet to name their starters for the series.
Wednesday will be a Whiteclaw Wednesday as well as a Trash the Poop Wag-Along Wednesday where fans can bring their dogs with them to the game and fans can enjoy $5 16 oz cans of Whiteclaw at Segra Park. Tickets are available at FirefliesTickets.com.