GreenJackets succumb to one-hitter in SAL playoff opener

By River Gracey |Sports writerNORTH AUGUSTA, S.C.—The Lexington Legends put themselves in a strong position Wednesday night, Sept. 4 with a 2-1 victory over the Augusta GreenJackets at SRP Park in Game 1 of their best-of-3 South Atlantic League baseball semifinal series.Now, Augusta (a San Francisco Giants affiliate) must win two games on the road to advance in the SAL playoffs. Game Two will be in Lexington, Ky., on Friday, Sept. 6 at 7:05 p.m. (EDT). If necessary, Game Three will be in Lexington the next day. Hickory and Delmarva are playing in the other SAL semifinal series. Hickory won Game One at home by a score of 4-3. Game Two is Friday in Salisbury, Md.In Game Two, the GreenJackets will send 6-foot-4 right-hander Kai-Wei Teng (3-0, 1.55 ERA) to face Zach Haake. Teng was acquired from the Minnesota Twins on Aug. 9.Legends' right-handed pitcher Jon Heasley was especially masterful with his seven innings of one-run ball to help give his team the help they needed to pick up the crucial series-opening win. Heasley had not allowed a hit through six innings when GreenJackets' shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald hit a home run to left field to tie the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning.Heasley finished the night with only one hit, one walk and six strikeouts.“Heasley was dominating with all of his stuff," Augusta Manager Carlos Valderrama said. "He could throw the fastball for a strike, he mixed pitches well, his curveball was working very good, and we just have to give credit to their pitching staff."Speaking of excellent pitching, GreenJackets' right-hander Norwith Gudino was also doing what he could to help his team by supplying five and two-thirds innings of one-run ball, striking out eight batters in that time frame. This was Gudino’s second game pitching since April after serving an 50-game suspension for banned substance use. Unfortunately for Gudino, his team could only muster one hit all night as the GreenJackets failed to give him any run support."Gudino also had a quality outing," Valderrama said. "I think he completely stopped their offense, too. He made a mistake against Guzman, but overall we pitched well."The Legends opened the scoring with a monster home run to right field from shortstop Jeison Guzman that put them ahead 1-0 in the top of the fourth inning.In what was a defensive struggle from the start, the winning run came on an error in the eighth inning when Guzman hit a ground ball into right field where GreenJackets right fielder Franklin Labour had an errant throw into second base that gave the runner Rubendy Jaquez enough time to score from first base.Errors have been a struggle for the youthful GreenJackets all season, as they totaled the second most errors in the South Atlantic League.The last time an Augusta team was no-hit was in 1996, and the GreenJackets only avoided such a masterpiece by Heasley because of Fitzgerald's home run.Update: The GreenJackets lost the second and deciding game of the series 4-2, thus ending their season. Lexington advanced to the SAL championship series against the Hickory Crawdads. Contact River Gracey at RGRACEY@augusta.edu.

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