Red Sox Drop Heartbreaker in 11

SALEM, Va. – The Red Sox never gave up, through the very end.

The Salem Red Sox (52-63, 22-30) battled hard and went down swinging, falling in 11 innings to the Fredericksburg Nationals (57-57, 27-24) on Friday evening.

Starting off down 1-0 to the Nats, the Red Sox quickly rallied when Johnfrank Salazar hit a 406-foot bomb to left field to put Salem in front 2-1.

Salem would add on with a run in the fourth and two in the fifth to take a comfortable 5-2 lead through five innings of play. But Fredericksburg slowly but surely chipped away scoring a run apiece in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth innings to tie the game at five.

After Salem couldn’t find the scoreboard in the eighth or ninth to end it failing to get anything going against Nationals reliever Moises Diaz (W, 1-1), it took the game to extra innings for the second time in as many series between the two in-state foes.

In the tenth, the Nationals failed to score after extra-innings pinch runner Jorgelys Mota took off from third to home on a weakly hit ground ball to second and was gunned down by Claudio Simon.

However, the Red Sox couldn’t come up with a run in their half of the tenth after Simon, the extra inning runner, took off for third on a fly ball to right and was subsequently thrown out.

The eleventh is where things got even more interesting. The FredNats came to bat facing an unfamiliar face on the mound for Salem. Albert Feliz (L, 0-1), the Red Sox starting left fielder, came in to pitch.

He dealt a pair of walks to Elijah Nunez and Cristhian Vaquero to load the bases with nobody out. That’s when Elijah Green hit an RBI groundout, followed by Leandro Emiliani hitting a sac fly to right for his third RBI of the ballgame.

All of that led to a 7-5, middle eleventh lead, for the FredNats entering the home half of the inning. Salem started off strong as defensive substitution Jhostynxon Garcia started the inning as the extra-inning runner and was quickly driven home by an RBI single from Lyonell James to cut the deficit in half.

Enderso Lira joined the party with a single of his own putting the tying run on second base, and the game-winning run on first. However, Fredericksburg closer Jared Simpson (SV, 1) figured it out and slammed the door striking out the next three Salem batters to secure the victory and clinch at least a series split for the FredNats.

The Red Sox with the loss, and a Carolina Mudcats loss now puts Salem’s elimination number at six.

Salem and Fredericksburg meet twice more this season on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday’s game is scheduled for 6:05 p.m., while the Sunday series finale is set for 3:05 p.m. from Salem Memorial Ballpark.

Location: Salem Memorial Ballpark

First Pitch: 7:07 p.m.

Time of Game: 3:07