Small ball pushes Lynchburg past Blue Rocks

Lynchburg bounced back from Wednesday’s loss by doubling up the Wilmington Blue Rocks Thursday night 4-2. The Hillcats jumped on Wilmington starter, Josh Staumont for two runs in the top of the first inning thanks to a two-run single from Yu-Cheng Chang. For Chang it was his 36^th and 37^th RBIs of the season. The Hillcats added a run in the second inning. Sicnarf Loopstok singled, swiped second base and came around to score on an error by first baseman Robert Pehl.

Mitch Brown dominated for the second straight start. Working ahead of hitters and using his slider to strike out seven batters. The righty scattered four hits and walked three en route to earning his second victory of the season. He is now 2-4 with a 4.38 ERA. Matt Whitehouse was outstanding in relief, tossing three scoreless innings of one-hit baseball. The southpaw tallied four punchouts while allowing just one hit. Trevor Frank earned his fifth save in six tries with a scoreless ninth inning.

For the second straight game Hillcats manager Mark Budzinski was forced to make a late adjustment to his lineup card. Mark Mathias was struck by a line drive in batting practice and scratched from the lineup. This comes one day after starting pitcher Sean Brady was a late scratch after dealing with a stomach bug.

Despite leading the Carolina League in home runs, the Hillcats used small ball to scratch four runs across the plate. In fact, the Hillcats had just one extra base hit. Loopstok doubled in the fourth and final run of the game for the ‘Cats in the sixth inning.

Lynchburg improved to 6-15 when scoring four runs or less…Lynchburg committed multiple errors for the 15th this season…They are now 5-10 when doing so. Greg Allen committed his first error of the season when he allowed Pehl’s single to skip by him in center field…The error was just the sixth of Allen’s career.

Lynchburg and Wilmington will square off in a series rubber-match Friday night at 7:05 p.m. Fans can listen to the action on 93.3 FM and 1320 AM as well as www.lynchburg-hillcats.com, beginning with the Hillcats On-Deck Show at 6:45 p.m.