Both Fredericksburg’s Luke Young and Delmarva’s Juan De Los Santos had their best stuff working on the mound, with offense at a premium for the first chunk of the game.
For the FredNats, the Low-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, Young worked five scoreless frames with just three base hits, and racked up six strikeouts. De Los Santos matched Young through four innings, keeping Fredericksburg off the board as well.
Delmarva, the Low-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, finally broke the 0-0 deadlock in the bottom of the sixth inning. Carter Young opened the inning with a triple, then scored on a Trendon Craig single the very next at-bat. Connor Pavolony drew a walk, then Noelberth Romero broke the game open with a three-run home run to make it a 4-0 ‘Birds lead.
However, the Freddies would not go away tonight. After a scoreless seventh, Jonathon Thomas walked and Paul Witt doubled to quickly put runners on second and third. Daylen Lile then blasted his seventh home run this year to cut the deficit to just one run, 4-3. Delmarva went to the bullpen, calling on Hugo Beltran. Sammy Infante reached first on an E5, and Branden Boissiere and Roismar Quintana each singled to load the bases.
Wilmer Perez then tied the game with his sacrifice fly into deep center field. Later, John McHenry came up with two outs, and ripped the first pitch he saw into left field for a go-ahead, two-run single to give the FredNats their first lead, 6-4.
Delmarva clawed back to 6-5 in the home half of the eighth when Anderson De Los Santos tripled in Romero, but a passed ball in the top of the ninth let Paul Witt score and make it a two-run lead again.
Matt Merrill allowed a leadoff home run to Angel Tejada in the top of the ninth inning, followed by a walk. But then he struck out three straight Shorebirds to secure a dramatic 7-6 win.
It was the first save of the year for Merrill. Pedro Gonzalez earned the win, while Hugo Beltran was tagged with the loss.
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Chris Graham
