Second Straight Shutout Vaults Hillcats to Victory

The Lynchburg Hillcats struck out 16 Augusta GreenJackets with a 2-0 victory on Thursday evening.

Rorik Maltrud and Matt Jachec combined to strikeout 15 in eight innings of work. Robert Lopez also pieced together a two-hit performance as part of the win. He also recorded a game saving caught stealing in the ninth inning to preserve the shutout.

The scoring was limited in the shutout as Jaison Chourio would be responsible for both of the Hillcats runs. He would drive home Tommy Hawke with an RBI double in the third inning to give Lynchburg the early lead. Then in his next at-bat in the fifth, Chourio would record a sacrifice fly to plate Fran Alduey.

Beyond that, the story of the night was the Hillcats pitching staff. They have now recorded seven shutouts as a staff this season, including three since the calendar turned to June. It was their second straight after defeating Augusta 5-0 on Wednesday night.

In addition, that now tallies 20 straight scoreless innings for the pitching staff against the GreenJackets since allowing seven runs in the seventh inning on Tuesday evening.

Lynchburg and Augusta will face off again on Friday night with first pitch scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tickets for the Shane Bieber Bobblehead giveaway can be purchased at Lynchburg-hillcats.com.