Salem Red Sox drop second straight to Myrtle Beach

Despite a leadoff home run from Mauricio Dubon, the Salem Red Sox fell for the second straight day against the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, 4-1, on Monday night at TicketReturn.com Field at Pelicans Ballpark.

Dubon took the second pitch of the game from Brad Markey deep to left-center for his first home run in a Salem uniform. For Dubon, it was his fifth blast of the year and first since May 31 with Greenville.

In the bottom of the first, though, an error on Dubon allowed Mark Zagunis to reach leading off the frame. Zagunis scored two batters later on an RBI double from Jeimer Candelario. Teddy Stankiewicz then faced Jacob Rogers, who lined a ball off the head of Stankiewicz, which deflected in the air to Jordan Betts at first, turning into a 1-3-6 double play.

After lying on the ground for a couple minutes, Stankiewicz got to his feet and walked off the field under his own power. He was removed from the game after throwing eight pitches in the inning, allowing the unearned run on one hit.

Kyle Kaminska came on in the second inning and allowed three hits, the last of which was an RBI double from Daniel Lockhart, scoring Victor Caratini. Kaminska settled down over the next couple frames before giving up three straight hits to lead off the fifth. Zagunis made it 3-1 on an RBI double before scoring on a Chesny Young RBI single to make it 4-1.

Kaminska (1-1) lasted through the seventh, tossing six innings of relief. He allowed three runs on eight hits with two strikeouts and a walk.

Meanwhile, Markey (2-0) was rolling against the Red Sox offense. After the leadoff homer, Markey gave up just two hits and retired 13 of the final 14 hitters he faced. The righthander went six innings, yielding a run on three hits with two strikeouts and a walk.

Mario Martinez reached on a walk against Markey, but failed to record a hit in the contest, snapping his hitting streak at 14 games. He flew out to left field to end the game, giving the save to David Berg, his first in a Pelican uniform.

Salem has now lost back-to-back contests to fall to 49-46 overall, 11-14 in the second half. Myrtle Beach’s seventh straight win improved the Pelicans to 55-39 and 14-11 in the half.

The Red Sox will look to avoid the sweep on Tuesday night at 7:05 p.m. Kevin McAvoy (5-7, 4.11) is scheduled to start for Salem against Myrtle Beach’s Jen-Ho Tseng (3-6, 3.67. Fans can tune into the game on 1240 AM ESPN Roanoke, online at salemsox.com or via the TuneIn Radio app.