Pitching was the story on Sunday at Fluor Field, and the Greenville Drive saw three hurlers combine to silence the Lakewood BlueClaws for much of the afternoon in a 2-1 victory.
With the win, the Drive salvaged a split of the four-game series to open the second half.
Roniel Raudes (7-2) set the tone with a brilliant performance on the mound for the Drive (2-2, 39-34). He faced the minimum through four innings and worked five frames in total, holding the BlueClaws (2-2, 31-42) to three hits, one run and one walk with six strikeouts.
The Greenville bullpen did their part to support Raudes. Trevor Kelley entered in the sixth and kept the BlueClaws scoreless over three innings, and Victor Diaz struck out a pair in a perfect ninth to collect his third save of the year.
After the teams exchanged zeroes through the first four innings, all of the game’s runs came in the fifth. Jose Pujols put Lakewood on the board in the top half with a one-out solo homer to left-center.
The Drive answered right back in the bottom half with two runs against Drew Anderson (1-2). Mitchell Gunsolus drew a leadoff walk and advanced to third on Tyler Spoon’s single to center. Luis Alexander Basabe followed with a double to the left-field corner to tie the game, and Austin Rei came up with a sacrifice fly to center to put Greenville ahead.
Tate Matheny singled in the sixth inning to extend his hitting streak to eight games.
Beginning on Monday night, the Drive will travel south to face the Charleston RiverDogs, affiliate of the New York Yankees, in the Battle of the Palmetto State presented by Spinx. First pitch is set for 7:05 PM. Left-hander Dedgar Jimenez (2-1, 6.00) will start the opener for the Drive, and the RiverDogs will send right-hander Christian Morris (4-2, 2.38) to the mound.
(Written by Cameron White of the Greenville Drive.)