GREENSBORO—The Grasshoppers wrapped up a home stand against cross-division rivals this weekend, as baseball in the South American League begins to simmer in the ramp-up to what forecasts to be a blazing summer of baseball.
The Hoppers and their weekend series opponents, the Charleston RiverDogs of the Southern Division, were at rest Monday with rain across the southeast postponing baseball games up the minor-league staircase.
Tuesday skies permitting, the Hoppers would play on a road trip across North Carolina’s Catawba River against the Hickory Crawdads.
The RiverDogs were set to play Monday’s postponed game in Charleston as part of a special home-opener doubleheader Tuesday starting at 6:05PM.
Thursday
The Hoppers walked off with a 3-2 win upon their return home to First National Bank Park on Thursday. A bases-loaded single by Eric Gutierrez felled the Charleston Riverdogs in the ninth inning to cap the first game the Yankees affiliate from South Carolina has played in Greensboro since 2013.
Charleston scored two runs in the eighth to pull even with Greensboro’s lead, but Gutierrez’s bat gave the Grasshoppers the win.
Starting pitcher Ryan Lillie was dominant for the home team, striking out eight over seven innings of two-hit work. Right-hander Nick Nelson, 22, also worked briskly on this wintry night in April, allowing two runs over six and striking out seven, and was pulled off the hook when his teammate Jason López tied the game with a two-run homer in the eighth.
Greensboro put together a two-out rally in the fourth inning. Micah Brown rapped a double for his second hit and scored when Michael Hernandez repeated the feat.
The Hoppers scored again in the fifth on an RBI groundout by Gutierrez, who had two hits in addition to his two ribbies. This first-and-third scenario was set up by Aaron Knapp’s base-on-balls and a hit-and-run executed by José Devers. Devers laid a humpback liner on the grass just beyond the abandoned position of the shortstop who had shifted cover second base.
Devers, 18, highlighted his Sally League debut with that piece of hitting and in the field with a diving snare of a liner off the bat of Charleston’s Wilkerman García in the third, robbing the Venezuelan of his second hit.
Recently a top prospect, García gave some and took some away from Charleston in the field, sparkling at shortstop with arm range on some plays, and making errors on others.
Leonardo Molina doubled and Jason López tied the game in the eighth with an opposite field bomb off R.J. Peace, while Greg Weissert struck out four over two and two-thirds innings for the RiverDogs.
Friday
The Hoppers won their ninth game in 2018 on Friday, landing the last blow in a pitchers’ duel with Charleston 2-1. Greensboro’s Taylor Braley was just a bit better than the Riverdogs’ Dalton Lehnen, allowing one run on seven hits over seven to the lefty’s two runs allowed on five hits over six-and-two-thirds. Each team’s starting pitcher notched nine strikeouts.
Charleston’s best chance came in the third, when Ricardo Ferreira, Oswaldo Cabrera, and Steven Sensley all singled—but a mixture of bad base-running and bad luck kept the visitors off the board. Cabrera’s knock struck a running Ferreira and Sensley was caught unawares on a back-pick by catcher B.J. López.
RiverDogs batters collected ten hits but could only scratch up a single run on Greensboro pitchers, who escaped from jams in the first, third and eighth. Charleston’s run came on a sixth-inning solo homer by Chris Hess.
Greensboro also scored theirs in the sixth inning. Aaron Knapp tripled and then scored on a single by José Devers.
Devers, cousin of Boston Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers, scored the go-ahead run by his own handiwork, advancing to second on a passed ball, stealing third, then coming home on a wild pitch. The 18-year-old from Samaná, Dominican Republic was a major piece in this winter’s deal between Greensboro and Charlestons’ major league affiliates, which saw Giancarlo Stanton traded from Miami to New York.
The RiverDogs had one more shot in the eighth against reliever Dustin Beggs, when singles by Ferreira and Cabrera were foiled by two strikeouts and a runner caught stealing.
Under the radar prospects in a deep Yankees system, Leonardo Molina and Sensley had encouraging nights, both with two hits and Sensley with a long fly-out to center that might have carried out of the park upon the air on a warmer summer night.
Saturday
Charleston beat Greensboro 4-2 Saturday on an oddly tense night in Sally League baseball, when tempers flared at the ballpark on Bellemeade Street.
Benches cleared in the bottom of the sixth and both sides were warned when a disagreement ensued between opposing managers about a ball that left the dirt and hit the bat of Grasshoppers Garvis Lara.
With nobody on and nobody out, Lara struck out on a breaking ball that bounced up and nicked Lara’s bat. RiverDogs manager Julio Mosquera leapt immediately from the visitors’ dugout to protest that this was a deliberate maneuver on the part of the batsman and was successful in convincing the men in blue that this was the case.
Charleston put together a four-run lead, piecemeal—one run at a time—in the first, third, sixth, and seventh innings. The RiverDogs’ first three runs came off Edward Cabrera, first blood drawn courtesy of Wilkerman García’s homer to lead off the game.
The second run on Cabrera came in the third when Frederick Cuevas led off with a single, advanced to second on a wild pitch, and scored on a groundout by Oswaldo Cabrera.
The third run was unearned, Cabrera plunking Hess at the plate, who took third when centerfielder Aaron Knapp bobbled Leonardo Molina’s single. The next action was a grounder snared impressively by third baseman Marcos Rivera, who botched the ensuing rundown by dropping the catcher’s return throw and allowing Molina to score.
Cabrera lasted five and one-third and struck out four.
Steven Sensley struck out looking in the top of the seventh, his countenance as he left the box suggesting he thought the pitch was low. Next up, Chris Hess took a strike and glanced back at the home plate umpire just as Sensley had, but this time catcher Michael Hernandez returned the jawing. Something must’ve been said, and the two players had to be separated.
Bryce Howe allowed the last run on a two wild pitches following a walk and a stolen base by García.
Nestor Bautista pitched the last two innings for Greensboro, the only hiccup back-to-back doubles in the ninth by García and Cabrera.
Riverdogs pitching was lights-out for most of the night, J.P. Sears striking out five over four and Daniel Ramos K’ing six over four and one-third and only faltering in his final inning of work.
Before Isael Soto walked and scored on a homer by Eric Gutierrez in the ninth, the only Hopper hits were sencillos by Soto and Jhonny Santos. Matt Wivinis got the final two outs to save it for the Dogs.
Sunday
The Hoppers took three of four games at home against the Charleston RiverDogs, yet find themselves treading water in their own South Atlantic League North division.
The Grasshoppers trail the Kannapolis Intimidators by half a game (Greensboro: 10-6; Kannapolis: 11-6) and the Delmarva Shorebirds, who possessed, as of Monday, a league-best record of 12-5. The RiverDogs scored early, but the Hoppers scored late after trailing 2-0 for seven innings.
The tide turned during the hometeam’s eighth offensive frame—the Hoppers’ second-last chance to narrow the margin on what had until that point been an impeccable pitching staff of one—Garrett Whitlock, the RiverDogs’ 21-year-old starting pitcher.
Whitlock pitched seven frames of scoreless baseball, giving up only two hits and striking out four of Greensboro’s batters, who otherwise were stymied by the infield grounder.
But when Brian Trieglaff replaced Whitlock to begin the eighth inning, Grasshopper batsmen pounced on him like prey. B.J. Lopez singled to lead off the inning. Zach Sullivan bunted and reached base safely. Sam Castro bunted safely on Sullivan’s heels to load the bases with no outs. Aaron Knapp singled and José Devers pushed a runner over with a GDP, and Israel Soto doubled to bring the third run home.
Eric Gutierrez flew out to Leonardo Molina to end the three-run eighth, but with the RiverDogs going down 1-2-3 to Tyler Frohwirth’s flawless ninth for Greensboro, the loss was already hung upon Trieglaff.
The RiverDogs were set to play Monday’s postponed game in Charleston as part of a special home-opener doubleheader Tuesday starting at 6:05PM.
