Twins beat Pirates, end season with 3-win streak
Published 11:06 pm Tuesday, September 1, 2015
From Staff Reports
Well, that’s a wrap.
The Twins ended their 2015 season with a 6-1 win against the Bristol Pirates Tuesday night at Joe O’Brien Field.
Elizabethton ended with a 34-34 record, which was not enough to top the Greeneville Astros (34-33) for second place. With the top teams from the East and West qualifying for the playoffs, the Astros and the Mets will head into post-season play along with the Princeton Rays and the Pulaski Yankees.
It took the Twins until the fifth inning to get on board. In the bottom of the fifth frame, Elizabethton’s Brad Hartong scored off a single from Manuel Guzman.
The Twins scored again in the bottom of sixth, with LaMonte Wade walking home to give the Twins the go-ahead run.
Elizabethton kept things rolling in the seventh. After Daniel Kihle scored off a wild pitch, both Wade and Zander Wiel scored off a double by A.J. Murray.
The last run of the game came in the eighth, with Twins’ Nelson Molina scoring off a sacrifice fly by Kihle.
The Twins posted 10 hits for the night, with the Pirates recording 11.
Murray went 2 of 3, with one double and two RBIs, while both Molina and Wade went 2 of 4, with Wade finishing with one triple and two RBIs. Hartong also went 2 of 4.
Dereck Rodriquez (W,6-3), who was selected as the Appy League pitcher of the year, recorded the win for the Twins. He opened things up for Elizabethton and threw for six innings, during which he struck out 11 batters with zero walks. He finished the game with seven hits and one run against him. Rodriguez finished the season with 61 stirke outs, landing him in fourth in the Appy League in strike outs.
The Elizabethton Twins closed out their season with a .500 winning percentage, while closing things out with a three-game winning streak.