Cristopher Cespedes hit a first-inning grand slam, his second in three nights, to lead the Delmarva Shorebirds to a 6-3 win over the Fredericksburg Nationals on Thursday night.
The Cespedes grand slam was a rare blemish for Mitchell Parker (L, 3-5), who took his first road loss of the season. The league’s strikeout leader went 5.2 innings and fanned eight batters, at one point retiring 11 batters in a row, but the early deficit was too much to overcome.
Fredericksburg took a 1-0 lead in the first off Brandon Young as Viandel Peña led off the ballgame with a base hit and scored on a Jackson Coutts RBI single. They fell victim to a bad break in the bottom of the inning, however, as Darell Hernaiz reached on a sun-aided double and saw the Shorebirds load the bases for Cespedes. The right fielder, who hit a grand slam in Tuesday night’s series opener, blasted a Parker changeup over the left field wall to give Delmarva a 4-1 lead.
Peña hit an RBI single in the second to bring the FredNats back within a pair, but the Shorebirds answered back with a run of their own as Hernaiz hit an RBI single in the bottom of the inning. Parker settled in after that, retiring the next 11 men he faced before another gift double chased him from the ballgame in the sixth.
Jeremy Ydens brought home a run in the fifth for the FredNats, grounding into a fielder’s choice with the bases loaded. Ignacio Feliz (W, 2-0) came in to get the final out of the inning, and pitched hitless baseball the rest of the way to earn the win in long relief.
Parker left with two outs in the sixth trailing 5-3, but an inherited runner scored when Coutts dropped a pop-up. Tomás Alastre kept the game within reach with 2.1 hitless innings of relief, but the offense couldn’t rally late.
The FredNats continue their series against the Shorebirds on Friday night. First pitch from Perdue Stadium is scheduled for 7:05, with FredNats On Deck beginning at 6:50 on the FredNats Baseball Network.
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Chris Graham
