Blue Rocks Edge Out Hot Rods in Opening Game of the Series

The Wilmington Blue Rocks (11-11) opened up their third home series of the season on Tuesday night, May 3, against the Bowling Green Hot Rods (14-8). The Blue Rocks were able to pick up a 3-2 victory to get back to .500 on the season and maintain fourth place in the South Atlantic League North.

Both teams started the night with strong defensive performances in the first inning. Wilmington almost got themselves in trouble early when opposing runner Alika Williams tried to score off of his teammate Diego Infante’s double to right field, but Blue Rocks second baseman Darren Baker made a long throw to get Williams out at home. When the Hot Rods were in the field, they closed the inning with a double play from second to first.

In the top of the third inning, Rocks’ starting pitcher Mitchell Parker gave up a homerun to give the Hot Rods the first score of the game.

Scoring was stagnant from that point on up until the bottom of the sixth inning when Wilmington finally answered back with two runs. Both runs were scored off of RBI’s hit to left field, and both were fly balls that Hot Rods’ left fielder Heriberto Hernandez could not track with the setting sun in his eyes.

After Parker stepped off the mound for Wilmington, Malvin Pena came in and struck out three total batters in the sixth and seventh innings. He was then replaced by Tyler Yankosky, who gave up the game-tying run.

Yankosky returned to the mound in the ninth inning with determination to make up for his preceding inning’s performance. He struck out three of four opponents in the inning to keep his team knotted up at 2-2 heading into the bottom of the ninth.

Wilmington could not seal the deal in the ninth, which then took the game into extra innings.

Zach Brzykcy took the mound for Wilmington in the tenth. He went one-two-three against his opponents for three strikeouts. His team then won the game 3-2 after Cole Daily scored off of a sacrifice fly ball to center field hit by Darren Baker.