Crawdads

HICKORY, N.C. - The Hickory Crawdads continued to put distance between themselves and the rest of the South Atlantic League's Northern Division. So did the Hagerstown Suns. Hickory won its eighth straight game on Tuesday, defeating Hagerstown 7-4 to extend the Crawdads' lead in the division while further burying the Suns at the bottom after getting swept in the four-game series. Hagerstown (9-22) took a 2-0 lead on Jhonatan Solano's two-run double in the third inning, but Hickory (20-12)

HICKORY, N.C. - Hagerstown held the upper hand through six innings but couldn't finish off Hickory Monday as the Crawdads rallied for a 7-4 victory to hand the Suns their third straight loss. Francisco Plasencia drove in Michael Martinez with a third-inning single before the Suns scored three runs in the fifth inning to go up 4-0. Zach Baldwin cruised through the first six innings for the Suns before allowed two runs in the seventh inning. Reliever Chris Lugo was smacked for five runs in one-third of an inning work in the eighth.

For one swing, what Brett McMillian lacked in physical power he made up in brain power. Even at 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds, it's not a matter of how hard you hit it more than if it hits the ground untouched when you do. Hagerstown's first baseman launched a 150-foot shot down the left-field line to drive home Mike Daniel with two outs in the eighth inning to lift the Suns to a 2-1 decision over Hickory for their first victory of the season and...

For the Hagerstown Suns, it was as uneasy as 1-2-3 on Friday. "They get a solo homer, a two-run homer and a three-run homer," said Suns manager Frank Cacciatore. "It was a situation where we sat there and worked for a run and they put a crooked number up on the board with a home run. " And unfortunately for the Suns, when Hickory launched its long-ball barrage, it hung another crooked number on Hagerstown - a seventh straight loss. The Crawdads defused the Suns' aggressive small-ball attack by launching a few fireworks of their own in a 7-3 victory to sweep the four-game and season series before 2,745 bottle-rocket brethren at Municipal Stadium.

Lately, the Hagerstown Suns have been playing like guys who get paid by salary. When the big moment of the game strikes, the Suns have been off the clock. The defining moment of the night came and went on Thursday, and the Suns were at the water cooler again. This time, the inability to respond to the call resulted in a 5-1 loss to Hickory and a sixth straight defeat. "It's not a case that we are playing badly," Suns manager Frank Cacciatore said. "But the moment hasn't been coming when we make that big pitch or get that big two-out hit. It just hasn't been there.

Baseball is known as a game of inches. The Hagerstown Suns didn't need a ruler to measure just how close they came to completing a ninth-inning comeback. The Suns went down swinging - scoring three times in the final at-bat - but fell about a quarter-inch short of completing the task in a 7-6 loss to Hickory. Hagerstown dropped its fifth straight game despite having the game work even better than eternal optimist and Suns manager Frank Cacciatore could have planned. With the tying run on third, Nick Evans became the eighth man up in the inning.

Jeff Landing got in five holes on Tuesday. That would have been great if he was playing golf. It isn't so great since he was the starting pitcher for the Hagerstown Suns. Landing allowed the leadoff batter to reach in each of his five innings and German Marte added a sixth occasion to help ignite the Hickory offense and lift the Crawdads to a 7-3 win at Municipal Stadium and send the Suns to their fourth straight loss. Hickory only cashed in on three of the six occasions, which may not be par for the course, but in baseball, .500 is a great average.

Hagerstown scorched the hit column on Wednesday night and fortunately for the Suns, two were saved until the 11th inning that helped produce a 3-2 win over the Hickory Crawdads. The Suns had 15 hits against Hickory, but couldn't put the locks on a third straight, one-run win over the Crawdads before going extra innings. Rafael Arroyo led off Hagerstown's 11th inning with a walk and went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Joe Michalics. An infield hit by Matt fisher moved Arroyo to third and Carlos Gomez's third hit of the game, a ground single to left, brought Arroyo in for the victory.

bobp@herald-mail.com Russ Triplett rocked. Michael Devaney rolled. And the Hagerstown Suns got themselves a rare encore. It was everything short of burning lighters in the stands as Triplett's clutch RBI triple in the fourth inning gave Devaney and Hagerstown's bullpen all it needed Tuesday for a 1-0 victory over Hickory for a second consecutive win for the Suns. Devaney locked into a pitchers' duel with Hickory's Romulo Santana in game where each got into a flow.

June 19 1981 - The Suns lose the first game of the second half as Scott Kuvinka hit a two-run double with two outs in the eighth to lift the Alexandria Dukes to a 3-1 win. The Suns, the first-half champs of the Carolina League's Northern Division, owned a 1-0 lead on a Kurt Fabrizio single in the second to support the debut of starting pitcher Allan Edwards. 1984 - Suns first baseman Jim Traber, who eventually played for the Orioles, had two singles and scored twice in his start of the Northern Division's 11-6 win in the 38th annual Carolina League All-Star Game.