It was a back-and-forth, tooth-and-nail Atlantic League affair on Sunday afternoon.
However, the Spire City Ghost Hounds (33-44) edged the Charleston Dirty Birds, 11-10, in the end at Nymeo Field.
In his first start of the season, former major leaguer Zac Rosscup got through a scoreless first inning with two strikeouts. The second inning, however, yielded different results, as the Dirty Birds (30-45) tagged Rosscup for three runs.
After Tillman Pugh, a former New York Mets minor leaguer, beat out a double play ball, with a runner scoring in the process, a Yovan Gonzalez double and bases loaded walk to Telvin Nash gave Charleston an early 3-0 lead.
Spire City responded with three runs of its own in the bottom of the second. Osvaldo Abreu and Scott Kelly both worked two out walks. Leobaldo Cabrera singled in two runs, and Luke Becker added another right behind him.
The Ghost Hounds batted around again in the fourth, plating another three. Luke Becker beat out a double play ball, which permitted a run to score. Jose Marmolejos and Kole Cottam both added RBI singles to make it 6-3 in favor of Spire City.
The Ghost Hounds chased starter Colt Webb after 4.2 innings. Then, the Dirty Birds summoned lefty Edison Suriel out of the bullpen, who allowed a run-scoring single to Marmolejos that swelled the advantage to 7-3. It became 9-3 in the seventh when Jimmy Paredes snuck a ball inside the right field foul pole for his 14th home run of the season.
Charleston would refuse to go down without a fight, however. In the eighth inning, Gonzalez blasted a three-run homer to left field to slice the deficit to 9-6. After back-to-back singles with two outs brought the tying run to the plate, Donald Goodson was called upon out of the bullpen. Goodson struck out Telvin Nash to strand a pair of runners.
In the bottom of the eighth, Spire City picked up two important insurance runs courtesy of a Kelly single.
Goodson remained on for the ninth but allowed four runs on a pair of two-run longballs from Diego Goris and Gonzalez. After walking the potential tying run, Goodson got Dwight Smith, Jr. to ground out to second base to end the game and clinch the series win for the Ghost Hounds.
Rosscup earned the win in his first start, allowing three runs over five innings while striking out seven batters.
The series saw 57 combined runs, with the Dirty Birds outscoring Spire City, 29-28. But the Ghost Hounds took the rubber tilt of the series.
— Jerry Del Priore
NY NJ Sports World/Brooklyn Sports World 