Katie Larrington
With rain plaguing our Monday in the Roanoke Valley, there was over an hour’s worth of a rain-delay for the Salem Red Sox game and though the game went through the 11 o’clock hour, Salem prevailed victorious; 11-8.
Scoring all their runs in the first six innings of this game, Salem continues to use their early offense and then clutch, late defense to win games. Yet, Winston-Salem tested the Salem defense from the sixth inning to the last pitch of the game; scoring six runs in the final four frames but, it just wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough and the Dash were well aware of it. Perhaps a bit cranky and ready for bed (due to the delay) Winston-Salem’s Courtney Hawkins was ejected after the two benches cleared in the eighth inning. There were no punches thrown or any serious confrontation BUT this was the first time I’ve seen the benches clear in Salem and was rather entertaining considering the circumstances…
The Sox suffered a loss to the Dash on Saturday and Sunday, but Monday was the start of a new workweek for the Red Sox and plenty others across the Roanoke Valley (hence the small crowd and strict business to attend to).
And the Sox got straight to that business (following the rain delay). Jonathan Roof and Kevin Heller each had 3 RBI and a homerun blast Monday night while it was Reed Gragnani and Aneury Tavarez who each added an RBI to keep their hot hitting going.
(What was most surprising to me was that despite some key injuries in the Salem clubhouse – Matt Gedman and David Chester - there are other guys who are stepping up and helping to keep the Salem record above .500)
Though the forecast for Tuesday isn’t very promising for baseball, the Sox are slated to finish the four-game series against Winston-Salem with the first pitch at 7:05 p.m.
With full intentions of going to this game to check in with some of the players before they head to Lynchburg for a weekend series, I can only hope at this point. With the amount of rain expected over the next two days and the rate at which the rain is currently falling, I’ll go on record and say there’s a 75% chance the game gets cancelled. But, let’s hope not.
For those loyal readers, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize sincerely for promising an Ellie-featured Sunday FUNday, Bark-In-The-Park story. I was unable to attend Sunday afternoon’s game which means Ellie (my pup) was too. The next Sunday home game will be May 11 in which I will surly be taking Ellie to participate in Bark-In-The-Park.
To stay in the loop with the Salem Sox and the Salem Sox Insider, visit TheRoanoker.com and follow me (dferg06) and the Salem Sox (@salemredsox) on twitter to get the latest updates on news and all things Sox.