After a fantastic pitchers duel on Thursday night that did not go Hub City’s way in a 2-0 shutout loss, Dalton Pence (0-1, 3.86 ERA) looked to pick up his first win while the Burger bats looked to get re-balanced against Greenville right hander Kyson Witherspoon (0-1, 10.80).
In near Déjà vu fashion to game three, both pitchers cruised through their first two innings. Pence struck out two in a three up three down first and despite hitting 2nd baseman Mason White in the earhole of his batting helmet to start the 2nd, retired the next three in order.
Witherspoon mirrored the velocity seen from Juan Valera last night, topping out in the mid to upper 90s while hitting upper 80s on his offspeed stuff. That helped him to face the minimum with a pair of K’s over his first 2 frames. Hub City would break the no hitter in the third when Antonis Macias led off with a bunt single. A wild pitch moved him into scoring position, leading to a 2 out RBI base hit from Maxton Martin to give the Burgers a 1-0 lead heading to the 4th.
After another 3 up 3 down frame with 2 more retired on strikes for Pence, Hub City added on in the bottom of the 4th, cashing in another leadoff knock — this one from Paxton Kling. He swiped 2nd and took third on the play with an errant throw, setting the stage for a run-scoring sacrifice fly to right for Arturo Disla. Yeison Morrobel would go down swinging to end the inning, but the Spartanburgers led 2-0 going to the 5th.
Pence worked another inning and a third, departing after shortstop Henry Godbout reached on a throwing error charged to Gleider Figuereo that came on a slow dribbler up the third base line in the top of the 6th. Adonis Villavicencio came on to relieve, inducing a pop up to short and a strikeout to leave Godbout in scoring position.
Ben Hansen came on for Witherspoon after 4 innings and kept the Drive in the game. He tossed three shutout frames with 4 strikeouts, a walk, and no hits. That was rewarded when Villavicencio got into a bases loaded jam with nobody out, having given up a base hit to Mason White and third baseman Freili Encarnacion as well as issuing a walk to catcher Adonys Guzman.
After a call to the bullpen for Anthony Hopii-Tuioneta, right fielder Yophery Rodriguez was beaned to get Greenville on the scoreboard. With 2 out, first baseman Anthony Anderson grounded to second to plate the tying run. A grounder to short got the Burgers out of the inning, but they’d head to the stretch knotted at 2.
Hopii-Tuioneta and Joey Danielson turned in a 1-2-3 frame each to send the game to the fateful bottom of the 9th still in a 2-2 deadlock. Paxton Kling started the frame with a walk and later stole 2nd. After Malcolm Moore was plunked, Artruro Disla grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, advancing Kling to 3rd and setting the stage for Antonis Macias to even the series with a walk off single into shallow left.
With the 3-2 victory, Joey Danielson earned the win on the bump, the series was evened at 2 games each, and Hub City improved to 2-4 on the season while Greenville dropped to 2-5.
Game five is set for Saturday afternoon at 4:35. Ismael Agreda (0-0, 11.25 ERA) is set to face stout Drive left hander Anthony Eyanson (0-0, 3.00).
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