Blue Rocks Fall Short Of Series Sweep In 8-4 Loss

The Wilmington Blue Rocks (35-42) fell to the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (42-36) by a score of 8-4 in the final game of this short three-game homestand.

Wilmington cracked the scoreboard right away after a sacrifice fly from Murphy Stehly scored Phillip Glasser in the bottom of the first, but a pair of defensive miscues in the third helped give Jersey Shore a 3-1 lead.

Joe Naranjo grounded into a 4-6 fielder's choice to score Jeremy De La Rosa in the fourth, but the BlueClaws got that run back in the fifth after Justin Crawford, who singled and stole third, scored on a sacrifice fly from Hendry Mendez.

The BlueClaws put up another three-spot in the sixth to take control of the game. Emaarion Boyd reached to open the inning after the Rocks’ committed their third error of the game, and scored after an RBI single from Aidan Miller. Crawford followed suit with a single, and the duo came around to score after a pair of wild pitches to make it a 7-2 game.

Boyd drove home Keaton Anthony in the seventh inning to provide Jersey Shore with its eighth and final run.

The Blue Rocks scored a run in each of the final two innings, but left the game with the bases loaded and tying run at the plate.

Maxwell Romero Jr. led the way for Wilmington with three hits at the plate, while Phillip Glasser and Viandel Pena both tallied multi-hit games. Justin Crawford, Keaton Anthony, Hendry Mendez and Emaarion Boyd recorded multi-hit games for Jersey Shore.

The two teams will travel to Lakewood for the final three games of this split series, with the next game scheduled for Thursday, July 4 at 7:05 p.m.