Woodpeckers Drop Third Straight to Wood Ducks

Fayetteville, NC – The Fayetteville Woodpeckers (8-9) couldn’t get the offense going outside of a Luis Encarnacion home run on Thursday night, falling 5-2 and dropping a third straight game to the Down East Wood Ducks (9-8).

The Wood Ducks led throughout the night, scoring a run on Jose Nodal (L, 0-1) in each of the first three innings. Cam Cauley scored in the first inning on a balk, Yosy Galan doubled home a run in the second, and Anthony Gutierrez singled in a run in the third for a quick 3-0 lead.

Nodel ended up completing four innings and striking out a season-high five while being tagged with the loss.

Dylan MacLean held the Woodpeckers offense without a hit until Leosdany Molina singled with one out in the fifth inning. In the following at bat, Luis Encarnacion lifted a ball into the left field bullpen for a two-run homer, cutting the game to 3-2 on his first long ball of the season.

Encarnacion’s blast wound up providing the only runs of the night as the offense was held to just two base hits the rest of the way.

Down East tacked on two more unearned runs against Nic Swanson, who did not issue a walk and punched out five over four innings out of the bullpen.

The best chance at a rally came in the ninth when John Garcia single, Sandro Gaston walked, and Leosdany Molina connected for his second hit of the night to load up the bases on Jose Cornielle (W, 1-1). Encarnacion stepped up to the plate representing the winning run, but fouled out to the third baseman ending the game in a 5-2 loss.

The Woodpeckers will look to turn around the three-game skid on Friday night in game four of the six-game series. Fayetteville is scheduled to start LHP Trey Dombroski (1-0, 2.08 ERA) and Down East will counter with RHP Brock Porter (0-0, 3.38 ERA). First pitch is at 7:05 PM.

FULL BOX SCORE: https://www.milb.com/gameday/728012/final/box