Kevin McAvoy delivered six-innings of three-hit baseball and the Salem Red Sox beat the Potomac Nationals 4-1 on Friday night at LewisGale Field.
McAvoy (2-1) struck out six batters, but worked around some control issues, walking four. He walked the bases loaded in the top of the first, but escaped the inning with no runs against him thanks to a lineout from Drew Ward and a Christopher Bostick groundout.
The Red Sox struck first in the bottom of the second inning. Wendell Rijo started a two-out rally with a double followed quickly by a single from Jordan Weems. Mario Martinez then smacked a two-bagger into right field to score Rijo and Weems, giving the Sox a 2-0 lead.
The Nationals scored their only run of the contest in the top of the third. Stephen Perez walked to begin the inning and was moved to third on a John Wooten single. With nobody out, Spencer Kieboom sent a grounder to short for what looked like a double-play ball but was mishandled by Tzu-Wei Lin. Perez scored on the play to cut the deficit to 2-1. One batter later Lin redeemed himself when Drew Ward bounced into a double play, moving Wooten to third. McAvoy then froze Bostick for one of his six strikeouts to end the inning.
The fifth yielded a pair of insurance runs for the Red Sox beginning with a pair of singles from Manuel Margot and Lin. Sam Travis belted a double into left-center, scoring both Margot and Lin to extend the Salem lead to 4-1.
Matthew Spann (0-4) was tagged with the loss for the P-Nats after surrendering four runs on nine hits over six innings. Joe Gunkel earned a hold for the Sox by tossing two scoreless innings with one hit against and Mike Adams picked up his second save for the Red Sox with a clean ninth.
Salem improved to 10-10 with the win while the Nationals fell to 10-12 in the losing effort. These two tangle again Saturday night at 6:05 p.m. It’s Star Wars Night at the ballpark plus the first 500 fans through the gates will receive a Manuel Margot poster. Daniel McGrath (1-1, 3.65) will start the second game of the four game series for the Red Sox against Potomac’s Nick Pivetta (1-2, 1.35). Fans unable to attend can listen to the game on 1240 AM ESPN Roanoke, online at salemsox.com or via the TuneIn Radio app.
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Chris Graham
