Charleston Blanks Crawdads

CHARLESTON, SC - Three RiverDogs pitchers combined to toss the third shutout of the year for Charleston en route to an 8-0 win over the Hickory Crawdads in South Atlantic League action at Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park in front of 4,772 fans on Saturday night.

With the win, the RiverDogs lead the series 2-1 and are now two games over the .500 mark at 17-15 on the season. Charleston remains in fifth place in the Southern Division. Hickory, now 19-15, stays in second place in the Northern Division.

The RiverDogs jumped on Hickory's starting pitcher Sam Stafford (0-3) in the bottom of the third inning. Charleston sent 10 men to the plate in the frame, scored five runs on four hits and three walks, and never looked back. A three-run homer by Reymond Nunez (3-4, HR, double, single, 4 RBI) in the bottom of the eighth provided insurance runs late for the Dogs.

Charleston starting pitcher Gabe Encinas kept the game scoreless before getting taken out with an injury with two outs in the third. Brett Gerritse (3-2) was fantastic in relief of Encinas with a final line of 4.1 innings pitched, no runs, two hits, and seven strikeouts and earned the win. Alex Smith closed the door on Hickory with four strikeouts in two scoreless innings of work.

Hickory starter Sam Stafford (0-3) took the loss giving up five runs in 2.1 innings. Stafford struck out two batters and walked three. Ryan Bores and Jose Leclerc combined to toss 4.2 scoreless innings of relief with two strikeouts, and then Josh McElwee gave up the final three runs on three hits with 2 strikeouts in the eighth.

Greg Bird contributed another nice game for the RiverDogs with two doubles and a bases loaded walk. Also, Kelvin DeLeon had his second consecutive multi-hit game for Charleston with a 2-4, one RBI performance at the plate.

Each of the eight runs for the RiverDogs were scored by a different man. Dante Bichette, Jr. was the only Charleston starter not to cross home plate safely in the game.