Riley Cornelio breezed through the top of the first inning, then fourth-rounder Andrew Pinckney smoked a single back up the middle. He was balked to second, Blake Klassen worked a walk, then Roismar Quintana hammered a triple to plate both runners and give the Freddies, the Low-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, a 2-0 lead. Max Romero Jr. followed up with an RBI single to make it 3-0.
Fredericksburg added another run, on back-to-back doubles by Pinckney and second round draftee Yohandy Morales, to pull ahead 4-0.
In the top of the fourth, Cornelio did run into some trouble. Salem, the Low-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, worked a pair of walks with a single mixed in to load the bases with nobody out. Cornelio got Luis Ravelo to strike out with the bases juiced, then Lyonell James bounced out to third base, but a run did score to make it 4-1. Cornelio issued another walk to re-load the bases, but the righty retired Yorberto Mejicano to limit the damage to just one run.
The Nats got that run back right away. Elijah Nunez worked a walk, then Johnathon Thomas singled to put runners on the corners. Morales then plated Nunez with a high chopper to third base to give Fredericksburg a 5-1 edge.
From there, Cornelio locked up the Salem lineup. He turned in a career-long six innings of work, with just the one run against him on three Red Sox base hits, and four punchouts.
Pedro Gonzalez followed Cornelio with two scoreless innings with a pair of strikeouts. Bubba Hall then shut the door in the ninth.
Cornelio got the win on his line, and Gabriel Jackson took the loss.
Erik Tolman gets the start for the FredNats tomorrow, against Jose Ramirez.
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Chris Graham
