Frederick Keys Defeat Lynchburg Hillcats 14-8, Scott Mueller Earns his First Win - Carolina League

MLN Newswire - www.mlntherawfeed.com - The only thing that could stop the Frederick Keys lineup on Saturday was the rain. After a 50-minute delay, the Keys crushed the Lynchburg Hillcats 14-8, in the finale of a four-game set.

 

Right-hander Jeff Moore got the start for Frederick, and struggled. In the first, he allowed back-to-back one-out singles to Alex Presley and Jim Negrych. A batter later, Steve Lerud hit a three-run homer, his seventh of the season, to give the Hillcats an early 3-0 lead.

 

In the top of the third, Lynchburg touched up Moore again. This time with two men down, Negrych doubled. The next batter, Jamie Romak, hit a two-run homerun to give Lynchburg a 5-0 lead.

 

Right-handed pitcher Scott Mueller came in to pitch the top of the fourth, and struggled as well. He allowed a leadoff doubled to Jared Keel. He later scored on a Greg Picart RBI-single to give the Hillcats a 6-0 lead.

 

Frederick finally got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth. Matt Wieters stroked a solo homer to right, to leadoff the inning, to pull Frederick to within five. One batter later, with one out, Brandon Snyder doubled. Chris Vinyard then reached on an infield single. Todd Davison doubled in Snyder to make it a 6-2 ball game. Paul Winterling stepped up, and blasted a 3-run homer to left, his second round-tripper of the season, to make the score 6-5.

 

The Keys ended up batting around in the fourth, and they would do it again in the fifth. Hillcats reliever Kyle Pearson walked Brandon Tripp, Vinyard, Davison and Winterling to tie the game at six. Pearson was pulled for left-hander Charles Benoit. He didn't fair much better. After retiring Miguel Abreu on a shallow flyout to center, he hit Danny Figueroa with a pitch, driving in a run, and giving the Keys a 7-6 lead.

 

Amador then hit a two-run single to extend the Keys lead to 9-6. Wieters stepped in again, this time from the right-side, and blasted a 3-run homerun. For Wieters, it was his second of the ball game, and league-leading 11th of the season. The O's top prospect now has three 2-homerun games against the Hillcats (an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that chose not to draft him with the fourth overall pick in last season's draft). He has eight homers against Lynchburg, that's more than any other player in the Carolina League has this season.

 

Frederick tacked a couple runs on in the sixth, and Lynchburg scored one in the sixth and one in the ninth to make the final score 14-8. Mueller picked up his first Carolina League win, improving to 1-1. Pearson got the loss, dropping to 1-1. Ryan Ouellette picked up the three-inning save.