The Flying Squirrels (25-34) recorded a season-high 18 hits, drubbing the Altoona Curve (32-26) by a final of 10-1 on Friday night at Peoples Natural Gas Field. Every position player in the Richmond starting lineup collected at least two hits and Jordan Johnson sailed through six innings to earn the win. The Squirrels have now won six of the past eight games – mostly against the top three teams in the Eastern League. Richmond will continue the series with a doubleheader on Saturday night with the first game beginning at 4 p.m.
Slade Heatchott once again ignited the offense in the first inning for Richmond. Heathcott opened the game with his first triple of the season, a deep fly ball that clanged off the top of the left center field wall. C.J. Hinojosa followed and brought home Heathcott with a sacrifice fly to deep right center field. Altoona quickly countered to tie the game with a run in the bottom of the first inning. Jordan Johnson walked the leadoff man Pablo Reyes and Kevin Kramer moved him to second base on a fly ball to center. With two outs, Curve catcher Jin-De-Jhang bounced a single into right field to score Reyes.
The Squirrels returned fire with a pair runs off of Alex McRae over the next two innings. Ryan Lollis doubled to left field and scored when Rando Moreno lashed a single into center. Brandon Bednar made it a 3-1 Richmond lead in the third, brining home Miguel Gomez from first base with a double down the left field line.
Johnson rebounded nicely after the run in the first. He was able to navigate around Curve base runners in the second and the third to keep the lead intact. Johnson stranded Wyatt Mathisen in the second and a both Connor and Jin-De Jhang after singles in the third inning. Johnson scattered five hits over six innings to earn the victory.
The Squirrels pulled away in the fifth, scoring four runs on five hits to move ahead 7-1. Hinojosa, Gomez and Bednar loaded the bases with three consecutive hits to begin the inning and Dylan Davis drilled a double down the left field line, scoring two. Ryan Lollis added an RBI single and Moreno bounced into a double play to plate the final run of the inning, 7-1. Richmond sent eight batters to the plate in the inning against Altoona’s McRae.
McRae soldiered on into the sixth, but would not last through the inning. Hinojosa collected his second hit of the game to begin the inning and Gomez followed with another base hit to force Altoona into the bullpen. Jared Lakind replaced McRae with runners on base and he allowed an inherited runner to score on an error before closing out the inning. McRae (4-2) suffered the loss and allowed a career-high 14 hits in the outing. The righty lasted 5.1 innings and allowed eight runs (seven earned) with one walk and three strikeouts.
Johnson cruised through the middle innings and allowed just one run over six frames to earn the win. Johnson (4-3) matched his season-high with six strikeouts and walked one batter in the victory.
Christian Jones, Yordy Cabrera and Ryan Halstead finished the game for Richmond by each tossing an inning in relief.
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Chris Graham
