Hoppers' loss sets up winner-take-all Game 5
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. ― And now it's winner take all. With five months and 124 games in the books, the Greensboro Grasshoppers' entire season comes down to one last game 10 hours from home in the Central time zone. Bowling Green left-hander Michael Constanzo struck out Andres Alvarez with two
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. ― And now it's winner take all.
With five months and 124 games in the books, the Greensboro Grasshoppers' entire season comes down to one last game 10 hours from home in the Central time zone.
Bowling Green left-hander Michael Constanzo struck out Andres Alvarez with two runners on base in the top of the ninth inning, and the top-seeded Hot Rods held on to defeat the Grasshoppers 7-5 in Game 4 of the High-A East Championship series Monday night.
That tied the best-of-five series and sets up a decisive Game 5 at 7:30 p.m. EST Tuesday at Bowling Green Ballpark.
With the Hoppers trailing 7-4,
Bowling Green made a pitching change, with Constanzo coming on to face lefty slugger
Lead-off hitter
Peguero hit an RBI single and Sanchez drew a bases-loaded walk in the sixth inning when Greensboro tied the game 4-4.
But Bowling Green roughed up reliever
Gonzalez took the tough-luck loss. He allowed one run in three innings striking out five.
Carmen Mlodzinski, a pitcher ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Pirates' No. 10 prospect, started the game. But Mlodzinski, who came off the injured list last week, worked on a limited pitch-count and gave up four runs in 2 2/3 innings before giving way to Gonzalez.
Notes
- Bowling Green is now 9-7 in head-to-head games against Greensboro this season. The teams are 4-4 in games played at the Hot Rods' ballpark.
- Highly-touted Curtis Mead and Alika Williams both went 3-for-4 for Bowling Green. Mead, ranked by MLB Pipeline as the No. 14 prospect in Tampa Bay's farm system, had a triple and an RBI. Williams, the Rays' No. 25 prospect, doubled twice and drove in a run.
- Hard-throwing Angel Felipe, whose fastball touched 100 mph in Game 1, struck out four in 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief. He's been the winning pitcher in both of Bowling Green's victories in this series.
- This is the 10th anniversary of the Grasshoppers only league championship, and the similarities are eerie. The 2011 Hoppers beat the top-seeded Savannah Sand Gnats in the best-of-five South Atlantic League Championship series, splitting the first two games at home in Greensboro and then winning two on the road. That series also went to a winner-take-all Game 5, but only after the Hoppers rallied late to tie Game 4 and win in extra innings.
In his career at the News & Record, journalist Jeff Mills won 10 national and 12 state writing awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Society for Features Journalism, and the N.C. Press Association.