Wood Ducks Ambush and Pitch to Victory Over Pelicans

MYRTLE BEACH, SC - Five runs early and Richelson Peña's performance on the round fueled the Wood Ducks (13-15, 37-60) to victory over the Pelicans (11-16, 54-43) 5-3 on Friday night. Pena collected his team-leading seventh win and lowered his ERA to 2.79 moving to second-lowest mark in the league.

The first four batters of the game reached for the Wood Ducks beginning with hit batter and a single. Josh Altmann lined s one-hopper past the shotstop for an RBI single. Later, a nifty double play turned by the Pelicans still scored a run for the Woodies, but tapered the production for the rest of the inning.
Myrtle Beach would respond in the bottom of the second when P.J. Higgins hit his second homer of the year to tag Pena for his only run of the night. Pena struck out three and
Down East would quickly respond in the third with an unearned run when Matt Lipka advanced to third on an error by Robert Garcia in right field on his double. He scored on a Josh Morgan groundout to mark the score at 3-1 DEWD.
The Woodies scored without the benefit of an error in the fourth off league ERA leader Justin Steele. With two outs and two on, Arturo Lara lined a double to right-center to plate both runs and slot the score at 5-1 Woodies.
Pena would roll through innings four through six and face adversity in the seventh with the bases loaded and two outs. He induced Zack Short to pop out and seal his fifth start of at least seven innings.
Game four of the series is Saturday night at 7:05 p.m. with righty Johnathan Hernandez (1-3, 5.59) facing fellow righty Mike Rucker (2-2, 2.13). You can listen to every pitch of the 2017 season live on Sports/Talk 960 The Bull or streamed on the TuneIn Radio app.