a pitch in Monday’s win over the North Roanoke Phillies
at the Moyer Complex.
PHOTO BY BRIAN HOFFMAN
The Salem Red Sox are back home this week for a six game series with the Lynchburg Hillcats. Salem will have 6:35 pm games through Saturday with a 1:05 pm start on Sunday afternoon.
The Sox are coming off a series in Zebulon where they hoped to make up some ground on the first place Carolina Mudcats. Instead, the Sox dropped four of five games and had one rained out, falling 13 games behind the Mudcats in the Carolina League’s North Division standings with three weeks to go in the first half.
Salem won the first game of the series at Carolina. Tuesday’s game was rained out and a doubleheader was played the next night with two seven inning games. Noah Song, Ben Hansen and Joe Vogatsky combined to pitch a two hit shutout in a 4-0 Sox win in the opener.
Song, who was in Salem for a rehab assignment, pitched a clean first inning before Hansen relieved and went four and a third frames, giving up just two hits and fanning four. He got the win and Vogatsky pitched an inning and two-thirds of no-hit ball to pick up a save in the seven inning game.
Salem scored one run in the fifth when Naatanael Yuten tripled and scored on a fielders’ choice. The Sox then put three on the board in the top of the seventh, highlighted by a two-run homer by Freili Encarnacion.
That was the highlight of the series for the Sox. They lost the second game of the doubleheader, 1-0, then lost 10-4 Thursday, 8-7 Friday and 4-2 Sunday around a Saturday rainout.
On Tuesday of this week Song and Encarnacion were promoted to Greenville and coming to Salem were lefthanded pitcher Shea Sprague, from Greenville, and shortstop Yohander Linarez, who came up from the Florida Coast League(FCL) Red Sox. The Sox also activated righthanded pitcher Joey Gartrell from the 60 day injured list.
This week’s promotions against Lynchburg, a Cleveland Guardians farm team, include Country Night tonight, Pickleball Night on Friday with a pickleball paddle giveaway, Star Wars Night Saturday and Fatherhood Day on Sunday afternoon.
