The Salem Red Sox are no longer perfect and neither is anyone else.
You sort of had to wonder when the Sox would suffer their first loss of the season and though they were chasing an historic Carolina League consecutive win record on Wednesday night; they fell just short to the Winston-Salem Dash, 4-2.
In what was a slow start to a rather chilly evening, the red-hot bats of Salem from last night’s game had also chilled out a bit. It wasn’t until the bottom of the fifth inning when Salem lit up the scoreboard for the first time of the night thanks to a solo shot from the designated hitter, David Chester. Following a double by Mario Martinez, Kevin Heller was able to rip a single that scored Martinez giving the Sox two runs on the board before the inning ended.
It just wasn’t enough, though.
The hitters from Winston-Salem had seemingly stolen last night’s “secret stuff” from the Salem clubhouse, drank it and fired up an offensive surge of their own. The two triples that came from Adam Heisler of Winston-Salem paved the way for the Dash as he brought in two of the four runs that were scored throughout the night.
And despite escaping a bases loaded jam in the eighth inning, the momentum never seemed to be on the side of the Sox all night; making it nearly impossible to come back from an early three-run lead that the Dash put together.
The Sox would give it one last effort in the bottom of the ninth inning; hoping for a walk-off win. With the 3,4 and 5-spot hitters due up, the Sox had to have some sort of faith that a comeback was possible…after all, they had not lost in some 224 days. And when the Dash gave up two walks in the bottom of the ninth with no outs, it gave the home crowd something to finally get excited about.
Just like showing someone who is fasting an enormous steak dinner; it was all just a tease.
The next two batters hit into the Dash defense and were called out, ending the game.
Winston-Salem and the Salem Sox will compete again tomorrow night (Thursday) in what will determine the three-game series winner between the two clubs. Don’t forget that every Thursday home game in Salem will feature $1 beers so, come on out, have a cold one and cheer on the Sox as they look to take the series away from the Dash.
