Tourists Hold Crawdads to Four Hits; Still Come Up Short

HICKORY- The Asheville Tourists held the Hickory Crawdads to only four hits on Wednesday night. Two of those four hits were Home Runs and the Crawdads used those blasts to come away with their second straight victory over the Tourists. Asheville fell by a final score of 5-3.

R.J. Freure allowed all five of the Hickory runs across four innings and suffered the loss. Asheville’s bullpen combination of Jaime Melendez and Jonathan Sprinkle tossed four shutout frames. Melendez left the game in the seventh inning with an apparent injury. He threw only 29 pitches.

The Tourists offense erased an early 2-0 deficit with two runs in the top of the second. Cesar Salazar hit an RBI double and Carlos Machado tied the game with an RBI groundout. A two-run Home Run put Hickory back in front 4-2; however, C.J. Stubbs left the yard with a solo shot for Asheville in the fourth.

The Crawdads regained their two-run advantage with an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth and neither team scored the rest of the way. The Tourists did manage to put the tying run in scoring position in the top of the ninth inning when Enmanuel Valdez and Freudis Nova each reached base. Both were left aboard when Hickory’s Jean Casanova picked up a strikeout to end the threat and the game.

Asheville remains without two big bats in their lineup. Matt Barefoot missed his eighth straight game and Scott Schreiber has been absent over the last four. The Tourists will attempt to bounce back on Thursday night in game three of the series.