Adrian Florencio's dominant pitching lifts Hoppers

GREENSBORO ― The big guy had his best stuff of the season so far, and it showed.

Winning pitcher Adrian Florencio, a 6-foot-6 right-hander, struck out 11 in five dominant innings to lead the Greensboro Grasshoppers to an 8-5 victory over the Asheville Tourists on a warm Tuesday morning at First National Bank Field.

Florencio (1-3) mixed a mid-90s mph fastball with a sharp slider to pick up his first win of the season. He gave up just one hit in five innings, a solo home run to J.C. Correa ― the younger brother of big-league star shortstop Carlos Correa ― in the third inning.

"The intent and conviction behind Florencio's stuff was there today," Hoppers manager Callix Crabbe said. "There was no trying to feel for it. It was more of a let-it-eat attitude. You look at the five innings he pitched, and only one lead-off batter got on base, and that was the home run by a good hitter. Other than that, you look at the counts and he was getting ahead."

The Hoppers offense staked Florencio to an early lead.

Henry Davis, the No. 1 overall pick in last year's draft, hit a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning. Matt Gorski added a long two-run shot to left field in the fifth, his team-leading seventh homer of the season.

It was more than enough for Florencio, who got eight of his last nine outs by strikeouts.

"There's something to be said when a pitcher throws with conviction and says to the hitter, 'Look, here's my best stuff; let's see what you've got.' Sometimes I think pitchers forget just how hard hitting is, and they make it more complicated than it should be," Crabbe said.

Florencio got a lot of swinging strikes by starting his slider in the strike zone and allowing it to break out of the zone toward the left-hand batter's box.

"The slider was really good today, and it definitely was more in the strike zone to start," Crabbe said. "That's a big thing for all of our catchers to understand: Get on the plate with their body, so that the pitcher has a good target to throw his best stuff at a particular area or lane. You do that, and you let the pitch go from a strike to a ball. If you start a pitch off as a ball, it's easy for the hitter to check off immediately."

Florencio has struck out 26 batters in 16 innings of work so far this season.

Davis went 3-for-4 to raise his batting average to .343, and he scored twice. He scored from first base when Endy Rodriguez's fly ball to the warning track in right field was lost in the sun and fell for an RBI triple. Rodriguez scored on Abrahan Gutierrez's single.

Maikol Escotto and Jack Herman had RBI hits in the fifth, when the Hoppers pushed their lead to 8-1.

Correa homered twice for Asheville, which rallied in the late innings and brought the tying run to the plate with two outs in the ninth.

Hoppers right-hander Cameron Junker came on and struck out Will Wagner for the final out to earn his third save.

NOTES

• Matt Gorski ranks third in the South Atlantic League in home runs (7), second in runs scored (20), fifth in RBIs (17), and eighth in stolen bases (8). He's been on base in 19 of 21 games played.
• Henry Davis has hits in 15 of the 19 games he's played. He has eight multi-hit games, ranks fifth in the Sally League with a .343 batting average, and ranks third with a .453 on-base percentage. Davis has reached base in 13 consecutive games, and 18 of 19 games played.
• Outfielder Jack Herman has hit safely in nine of his last 11 games.