‘Burgers rally comes up shy

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Hub City returned home after 13 games in 13 days on the road, and welcomed Jersey Shore (46-79, 20-40) to Fifth Third Park. The Phillies affiliate returned to its former home for the first time and took down the Spartanburgers (57-70, 23-38) in 10 innings 6-4. 

Facing off against his former team, Arturo De Freitas exacted revenge with two home runs in his first two at-bats. His fourth and fifth home runs of the season powered Hub City’s offense, and he threw out three would-be base stealers. 

Despite a pair of baserunners for both sides in the first, neither Ismael Agreda nor Juan Amarante allowed a run. De Freitas put the Spartanburgers on the board in the bottom of the second, blasting a 410-foot solo shot onto the Spartanburg Community College Berm in left-center field. 

Agreda worked around two walks in the third, but Jersey Shore broke the well in the fourth. Right fielder Devin Saltiban led off with a home run to tie the game, then a pair of BlueClaws reached on errors. A single from TJayy Walton scored both runners from first and third before a flyout ended the inning. 

Amarante retired seven straight batters after the bottom of the second, but Evan Morrison led off the bottom of the fifth with a walk. De Freitas stepped in for the second time and delivered the same result, crushing a two-run homer off the batter’s eye in center field.  

Both teams turned to their bullpens in the sixth. Hub City right-hander Frank Martinez opened his night with a one-two-three inning. Saul Teran worked around a two-out single.  

Martinez started the seventh with a walk. After a flyout, Brady Day doubled to put runners at second and third. Griffin Burkholder scorched a ball to third. Esteban Mejia made a sprawling stop and threw out the lead runner at the plate. Juan Villavicencio followed with a two-out RBI single to put Jersey Shore in front. 

Kai Wynyard provided two innings of scoreless relief for Hub City in the eighth and ninth. After a second scoreless frame from Tera, Camron Hill entered and set down the side in order in the eighth. 

Hill went back out with a one-run lead in the ninth. Antonis Macias led off with a 430-foot homer to tie the game. With one out, Morrison singled. He stole second and advanced to third on a bad throw down. Hill (W, 4-2) battled back with two strikeouts to force extra innings.

Case Matter (L, 2-2) came in to pitch the tenth for Hub City. Villavicencio singled on the first pitch from Matter to bring in the automatic runner. Robert Phelps knocked another base hit to put runners at the corners, and a double play brought in Villavicencio to make it 6-4. In the bottom of the tenth, the Spartanburgers went down one-two-three against Titan Kennedy-Hayes (S, 3).

The ‘Burgers and BlueClaws match up tomorrow at 6:35 p.m. ET. Hub City’s projected starter is A.J. Russell (1-4, 4.80 ERA) and Jersey Shore counters with Guissepe Velasquez (2-1, 5.36 ERA).