Very Few Bright Spots in 15-2 Home Loss

ASHEVILLE- The Asheville Tourists took a step back on Tuesday night when they suffered a 15-2 blowout loss to the Hickory Crawdads. Hickory scored 13 of their 15 runs across two of the middle innings to put the game away after it was close early.

The Tourists starting pitcher, Tyler Brown, surrendered two runs over his first four innings pitched. Asheville had opportunities to give Brown some run support early on; however, they failed on multiple occasions. Shay Whitcomb led off the second inning with a double and promptly took third on a wild pitch. Whitcomb was left stranded. Enmanuel Valdez led off the fourth with a double, also took third on a wild pitch, and also was left stranded.

Hickory used that momentum to plate four runs in the top of the fifth thanks to a pair of two-run Homers. The Crawdads then added nine runs on just four hits in the top of the sixth. Asheville trailed by a score of 15-0 heading into the seventh.

The Tourists brought in Jonathan Sprinkle to pitch and the right-hander was terrific. Sprinkle struck out five in 2.1 scoreless innings. Sprinkle’s K/9 ratio on the season now sits at 19.22. Alex Holderbach pitched a scoreless top of the ninth despite not throwing a pitch faster that 65 mph.

Asheville’s two runs came in the form of an RBI single by Bryan Arias in the seventh and a solo Home Run by Cody Orr in the ninth. Hickory’s starting pitcher, Justin Slaten, pitched five shutout innings and struck out ten. Slaten has thrown ten scoreless innings against the Tourists this season.

The series will continue on Wednesday with the first pitch scheduled for 6:35pm.