Grays drop fifth straight

GAME RECAP 6-20-2015

By: Anna Dunlavey; @annadunlavey

The DC Grays watched the Bethesda Big Train run away in the third inning and were unable to catch up. The 7-3 defeat was the Grays’ fifth loss in a row and their third straight loss at home. The team’s record is now 6-9 on the season.

​Quinn Carpenter (Texas Tech), the designated hitter and starting pitcher for the Grays, went 3-4 at the plate.  On the mound, however, he was not as fortunate. Carpenter gave up six runs on six hits and struck out six in three innings on the hill. Four of those runs came in the third. The Big Train scored two on a triple and two more on two singles.

​Steve Ghiardi (Millersville) came out to pitch the top of the fourth, and was immediately victimized by Big Train CF Logan Farrar. Ghiardi walked Farrar, who then stole second, reached third on an throwing error by Ghiardi, and scored an unearned run on a sacrifice fly to make the score 7-1. After Ghiardi gave up another walk with two outs, Bailey Spence (Cecil CC) was called on to finish the inning.

Spence, Layton Dill (East Mississippi CC) and Colton Shaver (Brigham Young) kept the Big Train from scoring any more runs. Spence pitched three more complete innings, giving up no hits and a walk. Dill pitched the eighth, and gave up one hit. Shaver, making his first appearance of the season on the mound in the top of the ninth, had a three up three down inning, including a strikeout.
​After the Big Train scored two runs in the top of the first, the Grays had some luck in the bottom of the inning. CF Bryan Baquer (Washington College) was hit by a pitch, 3B Keifer Rawlings (Bucknell) walked, and 1B Kurt Sinnen (Old Dominion) singled to load the bases with no outs. What looked like a possible big inning fizzled, as the only Grays fun scored on a bases loaded walk to RF Lamar Briggs (Jackson State).

​The Grays scored their next run in the bottom of the sixth. C Corey Chafin (Memphis) singled, and came home on two consecutive putouts, from 2B Mike Caputo (Seton Hall) and SS Jackson Kramer (Lafayette). Caputo then hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth, the Grays’ second of the season and his first. It could have been a two-run homer, had Chafin not been picked off only a few pitches earlier.

​Tonight, weather permitting, the DC Grays will play the Rockville Express at Montgomery College. Harry Thomas (UNC Greensboro) is the expected starting pitcher.