Thursday July 2, 2009

Augusta, GA – For the second straight night, the Lexington Legends get just enough hitting and just enough pitching to send the Augusta GreenJackets to a 2-1 loss, this time in front of a sellout Thirsty Thursday crowd of 4,196 at Lake Olmstead Stadium.

Lexington scored in the first on an RBI single by Steve Brown and again in the second on Jorge DeLeon’s run-scoring hit. Augusta came to within a run in the fourth on Ehire Adrianza’s two-out RBI single. The real story of the night was pitching.

Eric Surkamp, never looking fully comfortable on the mound until late in his outing, allowed five of the six hits he yielded in the first two innings. He also walked three while allowing the two early runs. Surkamp (5-3) finally found a groove, retiring the final five hitters he faced before departing after five innings with seven strikeouts.

His counterpart, Jordan Lyles, turned in his best of three total performances against the GreenJackets. Previously, Lyles (5-7) had not completed six innings against the Jackets but on Thursday in six he allowed just one run on four hits with two walks and two hit batsmen while fanning five.

The bullpens kept chucking zeroes on the board once the starters hit the showers. Justin Fitzgerald retired eight straight – bringing the total consecutive hitters retired by GreenJackets pitching to 13 – before allowing a two-out eighth inning triple to Freddie Hernandez. He ended his appearance by dealing a called third strike on a wicked curveball to Andy Simunic. In all, Fitzgerald tossed three innings of one-hit baseball, striking out two. Trey Webb delivered a scoreless inning after Fitzgerald was through.