.jpg)
The Charlotte Stone Crabs saw their six game winning streak come to an end on Monday night with a 4-3 loss to the Palm Beach Cardinals at Charlotte Sports Park.After producing 38 runs during the previous series against Brevard County, the Stone Crabs offense fell silent against the Cardinals, going 4 for 18 with runners in scoring position and stranding 12 runners on base during the game.
The Stone Crabs took an early lead in the first inning. Isaias Velasquez reached on an error to lead off the inning. Tim Beckham and Matt Joyce drew walks to load the bases. Henry Wrigley drove home Velasquez to give the Stone Crabs a 1-0 lead.
The Cardinals took the lead in the second inning. Jarred Bogany hit a two run triple to center field that scored Alex Castellanos and Devin Shepard to give them a 2-1 lead.
Palm Beach added to their lead in the third inning. Jose Garcia led off the inning with a double to left then later scored on an RBI single by Tony Cruz to increase the Cardinal lead 3-1.
The Cardinals added an insurance run in the seventh inning. Nick Derba singled to left field to get things going. Derba would score on a ground ball by Garcia to push the lead up to 4-1.
The Stone Crabs started to rally in the eighth inning. Wrigley doubled to left field to lead off the inning. Greg Sexton would later drive Wrigley home with a single to left. The Stone Crabs would strike out back to back to end the inning and leave the bases loaded.
The rally continued into the ninth inning. Beckham doubled to left field then advanced to third on a single by Reid Fronk. Wrigley drove home Beckham with a ground ball to score Beckham. But the rally fell short as the tying run was stranded in scoring position and the Stone Crabs fell 4-3.
Nick Barnese suffered the loss, allowing 4 runs (3 earned) with 6 strikeouts and a walk in 6 innings. Michael Jarman and Zach Quate combined to no-hit the Cardinals through the final 3 frames.
The Stone Crabs and Cardinals are back at it again on Tuesday night at Charlotte Sports Park. Joe Cruz (2-4, 4.14) will be making the start for the Stone Crabs against Aruimedes Nieto (2-3, 4.53) for Palm Beach.
I want an article on how awesome Tim Beckham is!
ReplyDeleteThat's easy! I can do it in one sentence: Tim Beckham has been awesome for six games!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, he has now raised his average from .146 to .217 after collecting multiple hits in his last six games. In those six games he has batted .500 (13-for-26) with two home runs, eight RBIs and 10 runs scored.
Unfortunately, the first month and a half of the season count too. Let's see where he stands at mid-season before we start making judgments about the season.
I'm actually happy he's doing so well, and hope he keeps it up. I never liked the pick, we've been over that enough times. But I'd much rather be wrong and have Beckham be a great success for the Rays than be right and have him fail and the Rays be out 6.15M for nothing. And as I've said before, I don't even think we can judge him after this season, I'm giving him until the end of 2011. At that point we should know whether he can stick at SS and what the bat is capable of.