Richmond closes home regular-season schedule with 1-0 loss to Akron

The Richmond Flying Squirrels had their seven-game win streak snapped in a 1-0 loss to the Akron RubberDucks on Sunday afternoon at The Diamond in their final regular-season home game of the year.

The Flying Squirrels (70-62, 37-26), the Double-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, finished their home schedule with a total of 428,541 fans at The Diamond this season, averaging 6,394 per game, leading all 30 Double-A teams.

The total and average attendance marks were both the highest for the Flying Squirrels since 2013.

Locked in a scoreless tie in the top of the ninth, Juan Brito launched a solo home run to right field against Ben Madison (Loss, 2-2) and pushed the RubberDucks, the Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians, to a 1-0 advantage.

Will Dion (Win, 3-4) notched a strikeout and a flyout to start the bottom of the ninth inning to complete his outing of 3.2 scoreless innings. Akron replaced him with Franco Aleman (Save, 7) and he fired in a punchout to secure the Akron win.

Richmond starter Ryan Murphy blazed through the Akron hitters with five scoreless innings and struck out five batters. He held the RubberDucks to two total hits and retired 11 consecutive batters to end his start.

Over his last five starts since August 18, Murphy has gone 1-0 with an 0.75 ERA, allowing two runs over 24 innings.

Reliever Wil Jensen posted three hitless innings with two walks and a strikeout.

Akron starter Jack Leftwich held Richmond to one hit over five scoreless innings with four strikeouts. The Flying Squirrels loaded the bases in the bottom of the first inning, but the RubberDucks turned a double play and a strikeout to hold the Flying Squirrels scoreless.

The Flying Squirrels are off Monday before starting a six-game series on the road against the Erie SeaWolves on Tuesday to end the regular season. Right-hander Carson Seymour (4-3, 4.10) will start on Tuesday for Richmond opposed by Erie left-hander Brant Hurter (6-7, 3.39).

Tickets for the Flying Squirrels’ potential home playoff games are on sale now. In the event that any or all potential home playoff games are not played, fans who purchase tickets will receive a credit which can be used for tickets to a Flying Squirrels home game in 2024.

Tickets are available online at SquirrelsBaseball.com/Tickets, by phone at 804-359-FUNN (3866) or in person at the Flying Squirrels ticket office.