Cruz cruises in 6–0 Hammerhead whitewashing

Posted by Mark Chapman on September 1st, 2010 at 11:31 pm

By Grant McAuley

Char­lotte Stone Crabs Broadcaster

Another out­stand­ing start from Joe Cruz and a four-hit night from Reid Fronk helped pro­pel the Char­lotte Stone Crabs to a 6–0 vic­tory over the Jupiter Ham­mer­heads on Wednes­day at Roger Dean Stadium.

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It was busi­ness as usual for Cruz, who recorded his Florida State League-leading 13th vic­tory as Charlotte’s pitch­ing staff com­bined to toss the team’s 12th shut-out of the year.

Hit­ting atop the order, Fronk enjoyed a season-high 4-for-5 night. He did a lit­tle bit of every­thing, col­lect­ing an RBI, steal­ing a base and scor­ing a run.

Cruz (13−6) notched his sixth con­sec­u­tive win­ning deci­sion by blank­ing Jupiter for six innings, allow­ing just three hits and walk­ing two. With 10 strike­outs on the night, Cruz fell just one shy of his single-game best  set against the Fort Myers Mir­a­cle on June 18.

Cruz now holds a two-victory lead over his clos­est rival for the “most wins” title. Cruz seeks to fol­low in the foot­steps of for­mer Stone Crabs right-hander Jeremy Hall, who paced the FSL with 14 wins last season.

The Char­lotte offense was aided by three errors and a slew mis­played balls by the Jupiter defense. Tyler Bortnick’s rou­tine fly­ball to cen­ter dropped between a pair of Ham­mer­heads out­field­ers and helped spark a four-run fourth-inning rally.

Jake Jef­feries ripped a two-run sin­gle to cap the scor­ing, while Fronk and Bort­nick col­lected RBI  in that inning as well. Tim Beck­ham added a sac­ri­fice fly in the eighth inning to push the Char­lotte lead to 6–0.

It was another pro­duc­tive night at the office for Stephen Vogt, who ripped a pair of dou­bles and fin­ished 2-for-5 to raise his FSL-leading bat­ting aver­age to .337.

Third base­man Greg Sex­ton con­tin­ued his hot hit­ting of late, col­lect­ing two hits and push­ing his mod­est hit­ting streak to four games. Over that stretch, Sex­ton is 8-for-15 with a pair of RBI and a pair of runs scored.

Cruz and reliever Michael Jar­man, who notched his third save of the sea­son by throw­ing the final three innings, com­bined to strike­out 13 bat­ters. That pushes the Stone Crabs single-season FSL record to 1,150 on the season.

The Stone Crabs now trail the Braden­ton Maraud­ers by just two games in the FSL South Division’s sec­ond half stand­ings and have a shot to win both halves going into the final week­end of the sea­son. Char­lotte (77−58) is now 19-games over .500, the high­est the team has been at any point this sea­son and just three vic­to­ries away from 80 for the year.

The series con­cludes on Thurs­day when the Stone Crabs send left-hander Frank De Los San­tos (10−9, 4.46) to the mound in search of a four-game sweep. First pitch is set for 7:05 p.m.

Stone Crabs-Jupiter box score 090110

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