Staten Island 3, Gastonia 1
The Staten Island FerryHawks defeated the Gastonia Baseball Club by a score of 3-1 on Sunday afternoon in Staten Island to complete the series sweep against the South Division leader!
This contest was a true pitcher’s duel as newcomer and former-MLB arm, Robert Kaminsky toed the rubber for the FerryHawks to start things off in this one. Kaminsky had an impressive first outing that ended with a final line of 3.2 innings pitched, 4 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, and 2 strikeouts. He turned the ball over to Hofstra grad, Mark Faello who pitched 2.1 innings, giving up 2 hits and 0 runs.
The winning pitcher in this contest was Brooklyn native and Xaverian graduate, Christian Allegretti who entered after Faello. Allegretti pitched 2 innings of not hit ballas he picked up 2 strikeouts and his 4th win of the season, moving his record to 4-0 and tying his for 2nd in wins in the Atlantic League! Robbie Baker, who relieved Allegretti, picked up the save in this one – his 6th of the season.
Offensively, the highlight of the game was Robert Brooks’s 3-run home run that came in the 8th inning with the Hawks trailing 1-0 in this pitching battle. Brooks muscled a pitch to the opposite field, over the right field wall to bring the game to 3-1 in favor of the Hawks – the winning score in this contest. The catcher has been on FIRE for the Hawks as he carries and 8-game hit streak into Monday’s off day. In that span, his numbers are as follows: .526 BA, 2 HR, 7 RBIs, .654 OBP, 1.000 SLG, 1.654 OPS.
It was a great week in Hawk City as the FerryHawks welcomed over 9,000 fans to the ballpark for TONS of fun events like Education In Baseball Day, Scouts Sleepover Experience, Autism Awareness Day, and Full Team Autographs on Kung Fu Panda Day presented by American Dream!
The team will hit the road as they continue the battle against Gastonia, now as the visiting club, before going to High Point. The Hawks return home on June 12th for their second, “Waggin’ Wednesday,” so make sure to visit FerryHawks.com to grab your ticket and take advantage of this opportunity to bring your pup to the park!
Lebanon/Lancaster 6, Charleston 3
The Lebanon Ironmasters, a.k.a. the Lancaster Stormers, broke out the brooms for the third consecutive year with a 6-3 victory over the Charleston Dirty Birds on Sunday afternoon at Clipper Magazine Stadium.
In 2022, Staten Island was swept by the Ironmasters. Last year, Long Island was the victim. This years, the Dirty Birds lost all three as Lebanon has run its record to 9-0 as the Stormers’ alter ego.
On the Stormers side, the Sunday win over Charleston extended a winning streak to seven games, moving Lancaster to within one game of .500 for the season and into a tie for third with the Long Island Ducks.
Justin Farmer keyed a two-run second inning with an RBI double inside the third base bag. Lebanon County native Joseph Carpenter slammed a homer to right center in the fourth, staking Noah Bremer (3-1) to a 3-0 advantage.
Bremer had survived leadoff walks in the second and fourth innings but could not do it again in the top of the fifth. A walk to Lyndon Weaver opened the visitors fifth. Delino DeShields and Gabriel Cancel delivered base hits to produce Charleston’s first run of the afternoon. A second scored when Courtney Hawkins grounded to first. Bremer struck out Keon Barnum to pick up the second out, but Clint Frazier tied the game with a single to center. Jared Carr doubled to left to put two runners in scoring position, but Bremer fanned Dariel Gomez to finish the Charleston fifth in the three-run tie.
Nick Lucky and Trace Loehr singled with one out against lefty reliever Nick Horvath (4-3). Cristian Santana followed with a three-run blast to right center for the 6-3 lead.
Lebanon’s bullpen walked a tightrope the rest of the game. In the sixth, Charleston loaded the bases with one out. Nolan Long got Hawkins to bounce into a force at the plate, and lefty Justin Kelly won a battle against slugging left-handed hitter Keon Barnum, striking him out looking on a 3-2 pitch to end the threat.
In the eighth, Stephen Nogosek walked the first three batters he faced, but DeShields was thrown out on a steal attempt in the middle. With runners at first and third, Juan Santana hit a smash off the artificial mound which bounced high to Loehr at second. He started a 4-6-3 double play to get Nogosek out of trouble to end the inning.
Even the ninth produced drama. Kyle Johnson, bidding for his first save, yielded a two-out single to Carr and walked and walked Gomez. Jonathan Soto grounded into a force to end the day with Charleston leaving its 13th and 14th runners on base.
The Stormers will open a three-game series against Hagerstown on Tuesday evening. Carsie Walker (0-1) will be on the hill for Lancaster. The game will be televised on Blue Ridge 11 and streamed on FloBaseball, beginning at 6:40.
NOTES: Carpenter’s homer extended his hitting streak to 10 games…He also flied to the warning track in left twice, with Carr leaping over the wall to bring one back in…Santana drove in nine runs for the weekend and has hit safely in six straight games…Lebanon pitchers walked 10 and struck out 12 on the afternoon.
York 16, Long Island 7
(June 2, 2024 – Central Islip, NY): Rudy Martin Jr went 5-for-6 with a triple, homer, and five runs scored to spearhead a huge offensive attack as the York Revolution ripped the Long Island Ducks, 16-7 in Sunday afternoon’s series rubber match at Fairfield Properties Ballpark. The Revs (22-13) have won six of their last seven and are now tied for the league’s best record while maintaining their two-game lead for first place.
Martin Jr, who also stole a pair of bases on Sunday, came within a double of the cycle while setting career highs in hits and runs. It was the 13th five-hit game in Revs history and first since 2022, and just the third five-run performance as he joined Nate Espy (2007) and Val Majewski (2011) in accomplishing the rare feat.
His enormous day began with a one-out single and a stolen base in the first inning before racing home on David Washington’s two-out bloop hit for the game’s first run. Trey Martin slammed a two-run homer off the scoreboard in left as the Revs had a quick 3-0 jumpstart.
Alex McGarry drove a solo homer to right center in the bottom of the second, but York starter Jon Olsen retired the other nine of his first ten batters faced.
York padded the lead with two in the third. Martin Jr smacked a single to left and advanced to second on an error before stealing third. Donovan Casey clobbered an RBI double off the right center wall, and with two outs, Martin pounded an RBI single up the middle to make it 5-1.
Tyler Dearden lofted an opposite field homer to left leading off the bottom of the fourth and the next two batters both reached, but in a potentially big turning point, Olsen set down the next three, stranding two in scoring position and allowing no further damage as the lead remained 5-2.
The Revs immediately put up a three-spot in the fifth to take a stranglehold, ignited by Martin Jr’s leadoff triple to left. Casey drove him in with a single to right, and two more scored as Casey came home on a wild pitch and Jacob Rhinesmith lined a sac fly to center to go up 8-2 as eight batters came to the plate in the fifth.
The Revs enjoyed an even bigger explosion in the sixth with their first of back-to-back, bat-around four-run frames. Casey’s sac fly to right brought home the first run before Rhinesmith laced a two-out RBI single to center, extending his hitting streak to eight games. Alfredo Reyes got in on the action by hammering a two-run double off the wall in left center for a 12-2 lead.
Having sat through another long top half, Olsen was met with trouble in the bottom of the sixth as the Ducks plated four runs. Aaron Antonini flared an RBI single to right and Manuel Geraldo chased Olsen (3-0) with a two-out, two-run double to left center on his season-high 97th pitch of the day. Scott Kelly greeted reliever Denny Bentley with an RBI single to left, cutting the lead to 12-6, as Olsen, the league leader in ERA at 1.28 at the start of the day, was charged with six runs after entering the day with just four runs allowed all season.
York responded with another haymaker in the seventh. Already having secured his second four-hit game in five contests, Martin Jr slammed a solo homer down the right field line, his second long ball in the past four games, to provide his historic fifth hit and fifth run scored in memorable fashion. Casey slapped a double down the first base line and Washington parked an opposite field two-run homer to left center, his 11th of the season and 80th of his Atlantic League career. One more came home on a wild pitch to make it 16-6.
Long Island got one last run on a Chance Sisco sac fly in the seventh before Tom Sutera and Matt Turner handled scoreless frames to close it out.
York tied a season-high with 16 runs and seven extra-base hits while setting a season-high with 19 total hits. They enjoyed five innings of multiple runs including four innings of three runs or more, punctuated by three consecutive big frames from the fifth through the seventh to put it out of reach.
In addition to Martin Jr’s career day, Casey, Washington, and Martin all had three hits, three runs, and three RBI.
Notes: Martin Jr is now 12-for-19 over his past five games, raising his average from .185 to .270; he also takes over the team lead in steals with 17. His five-hit game is the Revs’ first since Troy Stokes Jr. went 5-for-6 on June 25, 2022 vs Staten Island. It’s the first five-hit performance on the road by a Revs hitter since Melky Mesa went 5-for-5 at Lancaster on September 7, 2021. It’s the first by a Revs hitter against the Ducks since Andres Perez did it in 2012, and the first at Long Island since Chris Ashby did it in 2008. Martin Jr becomes the first in Revs history to ever record five hits and five runs in the same game. Casey ranks second in the league with 33 RBI including 15 in his last nine games. Rhinesmith (2-for-5) is now 15-for-37 (.405) on his eight-game streak. Martin (3-for-4) is now 10-for-21 with four extra-base hits and nine RBI in the last six. York improves to 13-5 on the road, and 12-5 overall since May 16 while also completing another victory in a suspended game during that span.
Up Next: York visits Charleston in the first of a three-game series Tuesday at 6:35 PM. Revs fans can catch the action live on SportsRadio 98.9 FM & 1350 WOYK, 989woyk.com, The New WOYK app, and FloBaseball.TV beginning at 6:15 PM.
High Point 8, Lexington 5
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The High Point Rockers used a six-run seventh inning to explode past the Lexington Legends 8-5 on Sunday afternoon at Legends Field. The win moved High Point to within a game of first place in the Atlantic League’s race for the first half South Division pennant.
The game was scoreless until the fourth inning when Connor Owings and Colin Moran hit back-to-back homers to give the Rockers a 2-0 lead.
Lexington answered back in the bottom of the fourth, taking advantage of three singles and a pair of Rockers errors to tie the game at 2-2.
High Point exploded for six runs in the seventh. With one out, Gavin Johns doubled and D.J. Burt drew a walk from Lexington starter Dustin Beggs (L, 1-3). Ryan Grotjohn reached on an error that allowed Johns to score and give the Rockers a 3-2 lead. Ben Aklinski reached on a fielder’s choice that allowed Burt to score for a 4-2 advantage. After Owings reached on another fielder’s choice, Moran followed with a run-scoring single that plated Grotjohn before Zander Wiel unloaded a tape-measure home run that put High Point on top 8-2.
Taylor Guerrieri (W, 2-2) went six innings for the Rockers and allowed just three hits and two runs, both unearned, while walking three and striking out two. Zach Muckenhirn shut out the Legends in the seventh and eighth frames, allowing just one hit while fanning four.
Lexington used a pair of walks from reliever Austin Ross and a triple to plate three runs to account for the 8-5 final score.
Johns and Moran led the Rockers with a pair of hits each while Wiel finished with three RBI and Moran had two.
The Rockers improved to 21-14 on the season while Gastonia, which lost at Staten Island, stands at 22-13.
The Rockers will return home and start a three-game home series with Long Island on Tuesday at 6:35 p.m. at Truist Point. It will be Long Island’s only visit to High Point this season.
Hagerstown 9, Southern Maryland 2
In a showdown at Meritus Park, the Flying Boxcars soared past the Blue Crabs with a commanding 9-2 win on Sunday afternoon.
The game kicked off with Hagerstown setting the tone, scoring two runs in the bottom of the first inning. Cito Culver and Demetrius Moorer were the catalysts, with Culver launching a home run and Moorer adding a triple to his tally, in his first game back from injury.
Southern Maryland managed to respond in the top of the second inning, as Wielansky smashed a solo homer to put the Blue Crabs on the board. However, Hagerstown’s Joe Campagna and Curtis Terry kept the pressure on, each driving in runs to extend their lead.
Despite Southern Maryland’s efforts to claw their way back into the game, Hagerstown’s offense remained relentless. By the end of the sixth inning, they had amassed a commanding 6-1 lead.
The Blue Crabs tried to mount a comeback, adding another run in the seventh inning, but Hagerstown promptly responded with three more runs of their own, putting the game out of reach.
On the mound, Hagerstown’s Solesky delivered a stellar performance, pitching six innings and allowing only one earned run while striking out six. He was supported by a solid bullpen effort, securing the win for the Flying Boxcars.
With the win, the Boxcars have leveled the series at three a piece in the inaugural edition of the Black Eyed Brawl.