Swanson Ties Season-High with Nine Strikeouts

GREENSBORO- The Greensboro Grasshoppers have nightmares about Asheville’s right-handed pitcher Nic Swanson. The Bixby, Oklahoma native has dismantled Greensboro’s offense on multiple occasions during his Asheville Tourists career. Friday night was more of the same. Unfortunately, the Tourists offense was non-existent and Asheville suffered a 4-0 loss.

Swanson went five innings, scattered three hits, and allowed one run to score on a Tourists error. Nic matched his season-high in strikeouts with nine and needed only 75 pitches. The Grasshoppers scored three runs after Swanson departed.

Offensively, Asheville managed one hit; a fourth inning single by Narbe Cruz. Narbe was caught stealing a few pitches later. The Tourists hitters struck out 16 times in the contest and went 1-for-27 as a unit.

Asheville’ backstop, Walker Janek, displayed his defensive prowess with a pickoff/caught stealing in the bottom of the eighth inning. Janek has thrown out 11 of 22 potential base-stealers with two pickoffs in his eight games behind the plate.

The Tourists and Grasshoppers are back in action for Game Five of the series Saturday night. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:30pm ET.