The Flying Squirrels (10-23) came up short again on Thursday, dropping their seventh straight contest by a final of 3-2 in the series opener against Altoona (17-17) at The Diamond. Altoona third baseman Eric Wood connected on a pair of homers to lift the Curve. The homer runs spoiled an otherwise stellar Double-A debut for Squirrels lefty Andrew Suarez. The southpaw Suarez hurled seven innings andallowed juts three runs on five hits in the loss. Tyler Rogers added a pair of scorless innings in relief for Richmond. Game two of the series will be played on Friday at 7:05 PM.
Lefty Andrew Suarez (0-)1 took the ball for Richmond in his Double-A debut on Thursday night. Suarez was sharp in the first inning, needing only 12 pitches to retire the side. Altoona managed to manufacture a run in the second inning, beginning with a leadoff double from Jose Osuna. Anderson Feliz then advanced Osuna to second with a sacrifice bunt and Stetson Allie brought in the run with a sacrifice fly to left for a 1-0lead.
Richmond was kept off the board for the first four innings against left-hander Cody Dickson. Dickson – in his fourth start of the year against Richmond – worked around a leadoff base hit by Rando Moreno. Dickson then retired 10 straight batters from the first inning into the fourth. Austin Slater drew a walk to break up the 10 straight and then stole second to move into scoring position. However, Dickson induced a softground ball off the bat of Hunter Cole to end the Squirrels scoring threat.
Altoona took a 2-0 lead off Suarez in the third inning and a 3-0 in the fifth inning as Eric Wood Launched a pair of solo homers The Squirrels were able to recoup the run in the bottom of the fifth inning with a hit and a walk. Myles Schroder led off the fifth with abase hit and Jeff Arnold worked a walk. A groundout advanced runners to second and third and that set up an unconventional play to score the Squirrels first run. Rando Moreno swung away at a 3-0 pitch and hit a ground ball to short. The shortstop Anderson Feliz fielded the ball and instead of throwing to first,attempted to tag the runner Arnold off the second base bag. Arnold was able to get in a rundown long enough to allow the lead runner at third to score to cut the deficit, 3-1.
That would be the only run allowed by Dickson in the win. The southpaw pitched into the sixth inning and allowed just three hits in a season-high 5 2/3 innings. Reliever Brett McKinney entered and finished off the inning for Dickson,
Richmond’s Andrew Suarez was able to overcome the pair of home runs and turned in seven stellar innings in his Double-A debut. Suarez allowed three runs on five hits and struck out six in the defeat.
The Squirrels continued their trend of attacking late in games and brought the winning run to the plate in the ninth inning off closer Montana DuRapau. Hunter Cole singled ot being the inning and scored on a base hit to center to trim the deficit, 3-2. That was as close as Richmond would get as Durapau finished the game to earn his seventh save of the season.
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